Washington, D.C. ? Seeking to combat a spreading global financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund said Sunday it had reached a tentative agreement to provide Ukraine with $16.5 billion in loans and announced that emergency assistance for Hungary had cleared a key hurdle.

The decisions were announced by IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who stressed that the 185-nation lending agency would act with speed to provide support for countries whose economies are being buffeted by the crisis.

Strauss-Kahn said the loan for Ukraine was designed to bolster confidence and noted that the assistance was sizable in relation to the country’s borrowing rights with the IMF.