BRUSSELS  -  All 27 EU leaders have agreed a €50bn aid package for Ukraine after Hungary had previously blocked the deal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the new funding, saying it would strengthen the coun­try’s economic and financial stability.

Ukraine’s economic ministry said it expects the first tranche of funds in March. There had been fears Hunga­ry’s PM would again block the pack­age as he did at a European summit in December. Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in the EU, had said he wanted to force a rethink of the bloc’s policy towards Ukraine and questioned the idea of committing funds for Kyiv for the next four years.

The package will help to pay pen­sions, salaries and other costs over the next four years. It comes as US military aid for Ukraine - the largest provider of military support for Kyiv - is being held up by Congress.

Many European countries also pro­vide military aid to Ukraine.

News of the agreement was an­nounced less than two hours after the summit started, surprising many observers who had expected talks to go on much longer due to the depth of disagreement between Mr Orban and the other EU leaders.

UKRAINE ‘HITS RUSSIAN MISSILE BOAT IVANOVETS IN BLACK SEA’

Ukrainian forces say they have de­stroyed a Russian missile boat from the Black Sea Fleet in a special opera­tion off Russian-occupied Crimea. The Ivanovets - a small warship - received “direct hits to the hull” overnight, af­ter which it sank, military intelligence said. It has released video footage that purports to show the moment of impact, followed by a big explosion. There has been no word about the in­cident from Russian authorities.

However, Russian military blogger “Voenkor Kotenok” wrote on Tele­gram that the boat had sunk after be­ing hit three times by naval drones.

Several features visible on the vessel in the Ukrainian video match those of the Tarantul, or Project 12411, a class of missile boats oper­ated by the Russian and other navies, which the Ivanovets belongs to.

These include the layout of the mast and sensors on top of the main superstructure as well as a large ra­dar dome on top of the bridge.

Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Direc­torate said the boat was destroyed by soldiers of its special unit “Group 13” in Lake Donuzlav, a saltwater bay on the western side of the Crimean pen­insula which houses a naval base.

“As a result of a series of direct hits to the hull, the Russian ship suffered damage incompatible with further movement - the Ivanovets listed to the stern and sank,” it said on its Telegram channel. A Russian search and rescue operation in the area was unsuccess­ful, it added. It said the ship was worth in the region of $60-70m (£47m-55m). Foreign Ministry official Olexander Scherba described the attack as “im­pressive”. “At 03:45 [01:45 GMT] there was the first hit and at 04:00 the whole crew was evacuated already. So there was no chance at all that this vessel would be saved,” he told the BBC.