The International Monetary Fund announced a four-year $15.6 billion loan program for Ukraine as part of a worldwide $115 billion plan to bolster the country’s economy while it fights Russia’s 13-month invasion.

WEAPONRY, DIPLOMACY

* A $2.6 billion military aid package from the United States, which might include air surveillance radars, anti-tank missiles, and fuel trucks for Ukraine’s struggle against Russia, is due to be disclosed as soon as Monday, according to three U.S. officials.

* A senior Ukrainian official ruled out any ceasefire in Russia’s war on his country that would involve Russian forces remaining on territory they now occupy in Ukraine.

* Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia faced “existential threats” to its security and development from “unfriendly states” as he presented President Vladimir Putin with an updated foreign policy doctrine.

* U.S. Secretary of State Blinken will push back on Russia’s attempts to “weaponise energy” and rally support for a Ukrainian counteroffensive when he meets NATO foreign ministers in Brussels next week, an official said.

* Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Russia, which has decided to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, could if necessary put intercontinental nuclear missiles there too.

BATTLEFIELD

* At least six Russian missiles hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv late on Thursday, and officials are gathering details about damage and casualties, the regional governor said.

* The advance of Russian soldiers on the outskirts of the eastern frontline town of Bakhmut “has been halted – or nearly halted”, the director of the Ukrainian defense publication Defense Express said.

* Reuters could not verify battlefield reports.

U.S. REPORTER’S ARREST

* Russia said on Friday that if the United States threatened Moscow over its arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, it would “reap the whirlwind”, the state-owned news agency RIA reported.

* A Nobel prize-winning Russian journalist said he did not believe that arrested American reporter Evan Gershkovich was a spy, adding he hoped diplomacy could bring about his quick release.

STORIES OF NOTE

* In Ukraine’s Bucha, a ‘wounded soul’, aches one year after liberation from violent Russian occupation

* SPECIAL REPORT-Facial recognition is helping Putin curb dissent with the aid of U.S. tech

* INSIGHT-Ukraine’s scramble for ‘game-changer’ drone fleet

* SPECIAL REPORT-Wagner’s convicts tell of horrors of Ukraine war and loyalty to their leader.