New Delhi, April 24 -- Cash-strapped Ukraine has secured a crucial European Union loan that will provide a vital lifeline to sustain its wartime efforts this year.

The 90 billion-euro ($106 billion) package was formally approved on Thursday, days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that the Ukrainian section of the Druzhba pipeline had been repaired and the flow of oil would resume to Slovakia and Hungary, conditions linked to the release of the funds.

Approval had been held up for months amid political friction inside the 27-nation EU, including resistance from outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, widely seen as the Kremlin's closest ally in the bloc. Orban was defeated in an election earlier this month, ...