European leaders agreed to significantly boost defense spending to ensure Europe’s security and voiced near-unanimous support for Ukraine at an extraordinary meeting on Thursday, after the United States dramatically pulled back its assistance to the continent in a historic upending of transatlantic relations. At the summit in Brussels, 26 European leaders signed a text calling for a peace deal that respects “Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” while including Ukraine in the negotiations. Hungary abstained. In a separate text, all 27 leaders of Europe greenlit proposals that could free up billions of euros to boost defense spending, calling on the European Commission to find new ways to “facilitate significant defense spending at national level in all Member States.” Leaders noted a proposal from Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that would provide countries with loans totaling up to 150 billion euros ($162 billion) and said the plan would be studied ahead of another meeting at the end of the month. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky attended Thursday’s special session, and thanked the leaders of the European Union (EU) for supporting him as his relationship with US President Donald Trump disintegrated over recent days. “During all (of) this period, and last week, you stayed with us,” Zelensky said at the meeting. “From all the Ukrainians, from all our nation: big appreciation. We are very thankful that we are not alone.” Following the Special European Council summit in Brussels, French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters on Thursday that the EU will give Ukraine over $33 billion in assistance, taken from Russians sanctioned by the EU. “The priority is to support Ukraine and its army in the very short term,” Macron said. “In 2025, the EU will provide Ukraine with 30.6 billion euros, financed by Russian assets.” In Washington meanwhile, Trump reiterated his criticism of unequal defense spending among NATO countries. “I think it’s common sense. If they don’t pay, I’m not going to defend them,” Trump said. Heads of the 27 EU nations had traveled to Brussels to find a path forward in the conflict; the latest in a string of sessions aimed at finding a ceasefire deal with Ukraine’s support before the US and Russia force one on Kyiv. But some fear that the involvement of ambivalent countries could derail efforts to put together a peace plan which might satisfy both Kyiv and Washington. And there is uncertainty across Europe that Trump would even be interested in any plan the continent presents him with. Asked about how Europe can convince the US to include them in negotiations over the war in Ukraine, von der Leyen said that all parties want “peace from a position of strength.” “This is also in the interest of President Trump, to have a peaceful strength, and if he wants to achieve this, it is only possible with the support of the European Union and its member states, because pre-conditions have to be met,” she said. Europe is “entering a new era,” Macron admitted in a televised address on Wednesday night, describing an increased weariness over the shift in Trump’s tone toward Moscow. “The United States, our ally, has changed its position on this war, is less supportive of Ukraine and is casting doubt on what will happen next,” Macron warned. And Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who was dismissed as Ukraine’s military chief last year in a major shakeup before becoming Kyiv’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, said in unusually blunt and potentially incendiary remarks that the US is “destroying” the current world order. “We see now the White House takes steps towards the Kremlin, trying to meet them half way, so the next target of Russia could be Europe,” he said at London think tank Chatham House on Thursday. “It’s not just the ‘axis of evil’ and Russia trying to revise the world order, but the US is finally destroying this order.” Hungary was the only country whose leader refused to sign Thursday’s Ukraine text at the summit, though Prime Minister Viktor Orban did agree to the statement on defense. By doing so, Hungary “isolated” itself from the consensus of Europe, European Council President Antonio Costa said in a statement to press after the meeting. Thursday was the third hastily organized European meeting over the future of the war since the Trump administration dramatically pulled back its support for the continent. A Sunday summit in London saw some progress: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said a small group of European nations would work with Zelensky on a ceasefire proposal, then present it to the US – a workaround that might avert another meltdown in relations between Trump and Zelensky. But this meeting had a key difference: It involves every nation in the bloc, not just the countries who opted to attend Starmer’s summit. And some countries are neither willing nor interested in supporting Ukraine’s fight for survival. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has repeatedly resisted calls to support Kyiv militarily. Unlike most of his European counterparts, he supported Trump following the president’s argument with Zelensky, writing on X: “Strong men make peace, weak men make war.” The Ukrainian leader said on Telegram Wednesday that Kyiv and Europe “are preparing a plan for the first steps to bring about a just and sustainable peace. We are working on it quickly. It will be ready soon.” As talks gather to talk peace, Russia continues assaulting Ukraine on daily basis. Zelensky arrived to Brussels just hours after the latest wave of Russian drone and missile attacks targeted his home town of Kryvyi Rih. A strike against a hotel in the southeastern city killed four people and injured many more, the president said early Thursday, adding that foreign citizens including Americans and Britons were among those staying at the hotel. A senior EU diplomat told CNN that discussions around burden sharing are likely to feature heavily in Thursday’s summit, stressing that the burden for Ukraine’s aid needs to be “shared more evenly” between member states. Reaching an agreement on that will prove difficult. Without singling any countries out, the diplomat highlighted how the countries that aren’t paying their “fair share” when it comes to Ukraine are also usually failing to spend over 2% of their gross domestic product on defense. Some serious progress is nonetheless expected. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a plan to rearm Europe in the build-up to the summit, and said the bloc could mobilize funds up to 800 billion euros ($862 billion) to achieve it. “We are in an era of rearmament,” she said in a statement Wednesday. “The question is no longer whether Europe’s security is threatened in a very real way,” she added. “Or whether Europe should shoulder more of the responsibility for its own security. In truth, we have long known the answers to those questions.” A senior EU official told CNN that they expect EU leaders to give a green light allowing von der Leyen’s defense plan to be moved “forward very swiftly.” There are immediate discussions taking place too: including on what the peacekeeping force deployed to Ukraine to uphold a potential ceasefire might look like. First proposed just two weeks ago, the force has quickly morphed from an idea to an apparent condition of any deal. The UK, France and Turkey would likely contribute the bulk of any such force, a European official familiar with the negotiations told CNN in the build-up to the summit. But the official said Eastern European states that neighbor Russia were concerned that contributing to the force might leave their own borders vulnerable – a fear that Poland has been particularly open about since it was first raised. “European NATO has about 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) of eastern border, so you don’t want to empty the eastern border,” the official said. “Most likely the boots on the ground, if there is to be such a component, will not come from countries like Finland or Poland who are frontline countries already and need to keep the boots on their own ground.” The official said it was a “reasonable assumption” that most of the troops would come from Britain, France and Turkey. The official said a timeline for confidence-building measures was under discussion, but said it might prove “challenging” for a limited ceasefire in Ukraine and prisoner swaps to begin by Easter. Agreeing and implementing a full-blown ceasefire across the whole front line in that timeframe would be “completely unrealistic,” they added. CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh and Svitlana Vlasova contributed reporting