The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says it has reached an agreement with Ukraine on funding worth $15.6bn (£12.8bn).
The organisation's first loan to a country at war is expected to be approved in the coming weeks.
It would also be one of the largest financing packages Ukraine has received since Russia's invasion.
The IMF recently changed a rule to allow loans to countries facing "exceptionally high uncertainty".
"Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues to have a devastating impact on the economy: activity contracted by 30 percent in 2022, a large share of the capital stock has been destroyed, and poverty levels have climbed," IMF official Gavin Gray said in a statement.
"The programme has been designed in line with the new fund's policy on lending under exceptionally high uncertainty, and strong financing assurances are expected from donors, including the G7 and EU."
Mr Gray also said the agreement would "mobilise large-scale concessional financing" for Ukraine from international donors and partners, without giving further details. The funding still needs to be approved by the IMF's executive board.
The IMF expects Ukraine's economy to record a slight contraction or growth this year.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the funding would help the country "finance all critical expenditure and ensure macroeconomic stability and strengthen our interaction with other international partners".
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who made a surprise visit to Ukraine last month, said: "An ambitious and appropriately conditioned IMF programme is critical to underpin Ukraine's reform efforts."
The US is the IMF's largest shareholder and the biggest contributor to Ukraine in terms of money spent.
Military aid, which accounts for more than half of US spending on Ukraine, pays for drones, tanks, missiles and other munitions systems as well as training, logistics and intelligence support.
Money has continued to pour into the conflict from all over the world since Russia's invasion of Ukraine last February.
Last week, the IMF said its executive board had approved a rule change to allow funding for countries facing "exceptionally high uncertainty".
Without mentioning Ukraine, it said the measure applied to countries experiencing "exogenous shocks that are beyond the control of country authorities and the reach of their economic policies".
Russian forces have attacked several Ukrainian cities, killing at least three people in a drone strike on a residential area of Kyiv region.
Upper floors of two residential buildings were hit early on Wednesday in the city of Rzhyshchiv, on the outskirts of the capital.
An 11-year-old was among the victims, rescue services said.
Separately, officials in Russian-annexed Crimea said a Ukrainian drone attack their fleet had been repulsed.
Explosions were reported by residents in the port city of Sevastopol.
The head of Russia's occupation authority Mikhail Razvozhaev said three "objects" targeting the Black Sea Fleet had been destroyed and Russian warships were not damaged.
There was no comment from Ukraine's military, which said earlier this week it had destroyed missiles destined for the fleet at a rail hub in Dzhankoi in northern Crimea.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched more than 20 "killer drones", as well as missiles and shells.
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On Tuesday President Vladimir Putin said that many provisions of a 12-point Chinese peace plan "can be taken as the basis for settling of the conflict in Ukraine, whenever the West and Kyiv are ready for it".
The plan makes no specific proposals and does not call explicitly for Russian forces to leave Ukraine's sovereign territory.
In a separate Russian attack, three people were wounded in the southern city of Odesa, when a three-storey building was hit in the grounds of a monastery, presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said.
Drones were also fired at the north-western region of Zhytomyr, but no-one was reported hurt. Ukraine's military said 16 of the 21 drones launched on Wednesday were shot down.
Air raid sirens rang out across Ukraine hours afterwards, amid reports that Russian warplanes carrying long-range missiles had taken to the air.
At least 12 people have been killed and more than 200 injured after a powerful earthquake shook large parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The 6.5 magnitude quake damaged buildings, triggered landslides and sent people running into the streets.
It struck on Tuesday evening, centred in a mountainous region in Afghanistan's north-east near the border with Pakistan.
Tremors from the remote Jurm valley were felt as far as India.
"It was a terrifying tremor. I had never felt such a tremor before in my life," Kabul resident Khatera told AFP news agency after rushing out of her fifth-storey apartment.
Nine of the confirmed deaths were reported in the valley region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan.
Three others were killed in Afghanistan, the country's health ministry spokesman said. A child was among those killed in the Laghman province near the country's border with Pakistan, AFP reported. Many families had been out of their homes celebrating the Persian New Year or Norwuz when the quake hit.
The remoteness and rugged terrain of the affected areas is likely to slow relief and rescue work.
Phone lines have been affected, and in Pakistan the highway in the worst-hit Swat area has been blocked by landslides.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has asked disaster agencies to take emergency measures to help people.
Tremors were felt over a 1,000-km area that spans India, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, according to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre.
Earthquakes are more likely in this region because it lies at the juncture of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
President Vladimir Putin told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Monday that Russia was open to discussing China's proposals to end the fighting in Ukraine at the start of high-stakes talks in the Kremlin.
"We are always open to negotiations," Putin told Xi, who was on his first visit to Moscow since the start of Russia's military intervention in Ukraine last year.
"We will certainly discuss all these issues, including your initiatives which we treat with respect, of course," Putin said.
The summit between the Russian president and the Chinese leader comes as China seeks to portray itself as a neutral party in the Ukraine conflict.
But Washington has accused Beijing of mulling arms exports to Moscow — claims China has vociferously denied.
Xi's three-day trip also serves as a show of support for internationally isolated Putin, just days after a war crimes tribunal issued a warrant for his arrest over the accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.
Shortly after landing at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport, Xi said his visit would give "new momentum" to Chinese-Russian ties.
He was greeted by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko on a red carpet as a military brass band played the countries' anthems, Russian state media showed.
During his initial meeting with Putin, Xi hailed "close ties" with Russia and the Russian leader said the two countries had "plenty of common objectives and tasks."
The two will continue talks on Tuesday.
'Constructive role'
The two leaders are due to discuss China's 12-point position paper on the Ukraine conflict, which includes a call for dialogue and respect for all countries' territorial sovereignty.
Putin has welcomed Beijing's statements on Ukraine as being indicative of a willingness to play a "constructive role" in ending the conflict.
But Kyiv on Monday reiterated calls for Russia to withdraw its forces from Ukraine.
"We expect Beijing to use its influence on Moscow to make it put an end to the aggressive war against Ukraine," Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko said in comments sent to AFP.
A day before Xi's arrival, a defiant Putin went to the Russian-held Ukrainian city of Mariupol — his first visit to territory captured from Kyiv since Moscow's forces pushed across the border in February 2022.
Xi's visit also comes just days after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin on the accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.
'Objective and impartial'
Beijing said on Monday the ICC should avoid what it called "politicization and double standards" and respect the principle of immunity for heads of state.
The court should "uphold an objective and impartial stance" and "respect the immunity of heads of state from jurisdiction under international law," foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a regular briefing.
Russia said it opened a criminal probe into ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, saying he had accused "a person known to be innocent" and was planning "an attack on a representative of a foreign state enjoying international protection."
Beijing and Moscow have drawn closer in recent years under a partnership that has served as a diplomatic bulwark against the West.
China has lambasted what it sees as a U.S.-led pressure campaign against Russia as Moscow's military effort in Ukraine drags on, instead calling for what it calls "impartial" mediation of the conflict.
"No single country should dictate the international order," Xi wrote in a Russian newspaper article published on Monday.
"China has all along upheld an objective and impartial position based on the merits of the issue, and actively promoted peace talks," he added.
Closely watched
Beijing's stance has drawn criticism from Western nations, which say China is providing diplomatic cover for Moscow's armed intervention.
They argue that China's proposals are heavy on grand principles but light on practical solutions.
The United States last week said China's proposals would simply consolidate "Russian conquest" and allow the Kremlin to prepare a fresh offensive.
"We don't support calls for a ceasefire right now," White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday.
"We certainly don't support calls for a ceasefire that would be called for by the PRC in a meeting in Moscow that would simply benefit Russia," he said, referring to the People's Republic of China, the country's official name.
Analysts say Xi's moves are unlikely to yield a cessation of hostilities, but his trip will be closely watched in Western capitals.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that Xi could also be planning his first call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky since the conflict began.
Zelensky has said he would welcome talks with his Chinese counterpart.
The heckling, which seemed to have come from a nearby building, prompts Mr Putin’s security team to begin frantically looking around trying to identify the source of the disturbance.
The Russian President’s official visits are almost always carefully stage-managed, and this was particularly true of his trip to Mariupol, a city that was razed to the ground by Russia’s forces during a months-long siege.
The Russian leader flew into the city on an army helicopter and drove himself to meet residents in a reconstructed apartment block.
One resident sobbed as she told Mr Putin she now “owned a piece of paradise” after the leader asked if she liked her new apartment.
“Wow, we have only ever seen you on television,” said one man after shaking Mr Putin’s hand.
Mr Putin’s bodyguards, wearing microphones, hovered around him at all times during the visit, occasionally whispering into the ear of a resident or guiding them on where to stand.
“We’ll have to get to know each other better,” Mr Putin told the beaming residents.
Mr Putin’s trip to Mariupol was his first to territory captured since the invasion began last year.
It came after the International Criminal Court in the Hague issued an arrest warrant for the Russian President for alleged war crimes.
At the turn of the century, America had emerged victorious from the Cold War and stood unchallenged.
It had greater power and influence than any other nation in history. It could have wielded that power judiciously to protect the American-led post-war world order and inspire other countries to follow its values of freedom and democracy.
Instead, it squandered that supremacy embarking on a calamitous misadventure in Iraq that was ill-advised and disastrously executed. It would be the beginning of the end of the pax Americana.
A direct line can be drawn between that debacle, which began on 20 March 2003 and others that followed, right up to the perilous state of the world today.
Image:Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein standing by an Iraqi flag in 2002
Image:George W Bush had the support of Britain's Tony Blair in his decision to invade Iraq
The falsehoods and delusions that led to war
America went to war led by ideologues who believed they could refashion the Middle East in their own likeness and bring democracy and a more pro-Western outlook to the region.
The failure of that neoconservative project has done lasting damage to Americans' claims of exceptionalism, and their belief that their form of governance is an example to the rest of the world. And that has by extension done enduring harm to the American-led world order.
The failings of that project in Iraq are well documented. The false premise of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the delusion that invaders would be welcomed as liberators, the absence of any plan for the day after. The damage to America's standing in the world has been incalculable.
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Equally, human rights violations, violations of democratic norms, targeted killings, and the atrocities of Abu Ghraib prison, from where photographs showing abuse of inmates by US soldiers emerged, tarnished America's image as the standard-bearer of democracy and human rights.
Iraq fell apart under occupation. The US disbanded the Ba'ath party and sents its army home. In the vacuum sectarian extremists thrived. The war had been fought to neutralise the threat posed by Al Qaeda in the wake of 9/11.
The opposite happened and even more extreme groups were spawned launching unprecedented campaigns of terror against occupiers and civilians alike. From the failed states of Iraq and Syria, Islamic State was born - an organisation that for years wrenched swathes of territory from both countries and plumbed new depths of terror and depravity.
For America, the enduring impact of the war and occupation has been a weakening of Washington's influence in the world. When India and other countries in the global south sit on the fence in UN resolutions on Ukraine, their ambivalence can in part be traced back to America's record in Iraq.
The distraction of Iraq led to failure in Afghanistan, a protracted two decades of occupation and a disastrous withdrawal.
Iraq sucked up what policymakers in Washington call bandwidth year after year, while in the east a far greater challenge was rising. The West would take years to wake up to the threat posed by China.
Closer to Iraq, Iran was strengthened. Before the invasion, its regional influence was limited to a militia in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah. Today it has clout in capitals from Beirut to Damascus to Baghdad to Yemen.
The war in Iraq has done damage to America's belief in itself. The conflict cost a trillion dollars and thousands of American lives. It has fuelled opposition to any more military adventures abroad.
And it has undermined Americans' faith in both government and the political and media elites meant to hold it to account. That only in part helps explain the rise of populism that ultimately brought Trump to the White House.
Image:An explosion rocks Baghdad during air strikes on 21 March 2003
Image:US military escort a group of Iraqi soldiers dressed in civilian clothes north of Basra, Iraq, in 2003
Iraq still recovering from journey to hell and back
In Iraq, people are now no longer living under tyranny. There is reportedly some sense of hope and renewal, but only recently. And the country has literally been to hell and back to get there.
Hundreds of thousands have died in the war and the waves of sectarian violence that followed. The country has been broken, its institutions destroyed and its economy ravaged.
It is only just beginning to recover from all that trauma. But perhaps it can now look forward cautiously to a slightly better future. That is more than might have been said had Saddam Hussein remained in power or any of his impulsive, venal sons.
Image:Another view of Saddam Hussein's statue being pulled down
Image:Thousands of crosses at a memorial for US troops killed in the Iraq war, in Lafayette, California
Ten years ago, George W Bush said the final verdict on his actions inIraq would come long after his death.
That may be true, and it may take more time to judge whether the removal of one of the worst tyrants in history in any way justified the enormous cost and pain that then ensued.
Twenty years on, though, we can say the invasion and occupation have had a lasting legacy on the region and the world, and much of that has not been for the better.
Xi Jinping, the Chinese President, has arrived in Moscow for a summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, state media reported.
"On the afternoon of March 20, local time, President Xi Jinping arrived in Russia's capital Moscow by a special plane," state broadcaster CCTV said.
Mr Xi will be the first world leader to shake Mr Putin's hand since the International Criminal Court in the Hague issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader on Friday over the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia since the start of the war.
In a Chinese newspaper piece published on the Kremlin website late on Sunday, Mr Putin said he had high hopes for the visit by his "good old friend" Mr Xi.
