In one of the combat zones against Russia, the supply chief for a Ukrainian fighting brigade places his online order for war supplies, a long list ranging from drones, trucks and thermal sights to batteries, generators and tape. They are needed, he writes, to equip two new battalions and “combat against armed aggression.”

In a makeshift supply depot in the capital, Kyiv, crowd-funders start busying themselves with his request. Their bustle will get the equipment to the 72nd Brigade within days, all paid for with public donations. In their ramshackle office, a poster with the Vietnam-era peace slogan exhorts: “Drop acid, Not bombs.”

With attritional combat devouring soldiers and resources, Ukraine is waging a people’s war, fought away from front lines by self-starting networks of donors and volunteers. Tech-savvy systems they’ve thrown together convert millions of dollars in donations into swift Amazon-like deliveries of war gear direct to the battlefields. They’re helping keep Ukraine in the fight at a critical juncture of the Russian invasion, as its better-supplied aggressor applies tremendous, grinding pressure on battlefields to the east and south.

Civilian volunteering is also boosting morale, providing tangible proof to Ukrainians that they’re together in their battle for survival, even if they don’t have guns in their hands. From grandmothers cutting old clothes into strips to make camouflage netting to the bereaved girlfriend of a slain soldier who walked into the supply depot after his burial saying she wanted to help, most everyone seems to be doing their bit, big and small or by direct debit.