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After 17 hours of at times heated debate, EU leaders agreed in the early hours of Friday morning to jointly raise €90bn (£79bn; $105bn) in zero-interest loans to keep Ukraine financially afloat for the next two years.
Kyiv had been clear: the money wasn't a nice-to-have; it was a must-have.
With the US under Donald Trump no longer looking to provide new direct military aid to Ukraine, the war-torn country has turned to Europe.
Without the cash, Volodymyr Zelensky told EU leaders he wouldn't have enough money to pay Ukrainian soldiers or buy the weapons he needed to counter Russian aggression.
The now agreed EU loan will be guaranteed by the bloc's common budget.
But in a blow to Brussels' desire to demonstrate decisive European unity over Ukraine to EU sceptics in Washington and Moscow, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic only agreed to support the plan - it required unanimity to be passed - if they were exempt from it individually.
Yet another indication of the divisions in Europe over attitudes to Ukraine and to Moscow.
Hungary and Slovakia are known to be closer to the Kremlin.
This brings them into direct confrontation with EU countries geographically nearer to Russia such as Poland and the Baltic States.
They view Ukraine's survival against Russia as existential.
If Kyiv were to lose to Moscow on the battlefield because it was cash or weapons-strapped, they believe that would embolden Russia and would be a disaster for European security and stability more broadly.
Arriving at the start of Thursday's fraught summit, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said EU leaders had a clear decision to make: pay money today, he said, or pay in blood tomorrow.
He said he wasn't talking about Ukraine. He was talking about Europe.
The new EU joint-loan plan for Ukraine replaces a much-debated EU proposal to raise the €90bn using frozen Russian state assets held in the bloc (€210bn euros' worth in total), mostly in Belgium.
Kyiv had described that idea as morally justified, considering the billions of dollars' worth of destruction wreaked by Moscow on Ukraine.
But a number of EU countries feared legal retribution by Russia. They worried too that the eurozone's international reputation as a safe destination for global assets could be damaged.
Brussels said on Friday it was considering using the frozen Russian assets eventually, to repay the EU loan to Ukraine. But that would be something to be worked out in the future - if a peace deal is signed.
For now, on top of the new EU loan, it's estimated Ukraine will need another €45bn euros to cover all its costs for 2026/2027.
Brussels hopes non-EU allies of Ukraine like the UK, Japan and Canada might pick up some of that tab. Not going bankrupt now also opens the door for Kyiv to receive loans from banks like the IMF.
