The European Union on Thursday paid out the first three billion euros from a mammoth new loan to Ukraine, the bloc’s chief Ursula von der Leyen said.

The 90-billion-euro financial lifeline is aimed at helping Kyiv plug budget black holes and bolster its military over four years into Russia’s invasion.

“Today, we are transferring the first tranche under this loan… it’s exactly 3.2 billion euros ($3.6 billion) in macro-financial assistance,” von der Leyen told a Ukraine recovery conference in Poland.

“And we will start paying the first money of the six billion euros for drone production in the coming days,” she said.

The funds come at a time that Ukraine appears to be turning the tide on Moscow by holding the line on the battlefield and inflicting damaging strikes on Russia’s infrastructure.

On the ground, Ukrainian drone strikes killed five people, including two children, in Russia and on the Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula, in attacks that also triggered a fire at a major oil depot in the country’s south, local officials said Thursday.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it downed 269 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russia and Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.

In Crimea, which Ukraine is trying to cut off from Russian logistics and supply routes, the Russia-appointed governor Sergey Aksyonov said, “Two people, including a child, were killed and two others wounded … as a result of overnight enemy attacks.

Drone strikes also killed two people in the border Bryansk region — a 23-year-old driver and 15-year-old girl — and one in the Belgorod region, regional authorities said.

Kyiv insists that the Ukrainian army first and foremost targets military installations and energy infrastructure, in a bid to deprive the Kremlin’s war chest of vital fossil fuel revenues.

In Russia’s southern Krasnodar Krai region, debris from a drone strike triggered a fire at an oil depot, authorities said Thursday. (AFP)