“Café owners, IT people, bakers, chefs, you name it. All the professional, normal people are going to fight, because if they don’t Kyiv is going to fall and it’s going to be a huge humanitarian disaster.”

Olia Hercules, who lives in London with her husband Joe Woodhouse and her two children, has been vocal about her outrage on social media over recent weeks, sharing her fears for her family and countrymen since Russian forces began their advance towards Ukraine. Over the weekend, an obviously distraught and emotional Hercules shared news from her Kyiv-based brother who, like so many other civilians, has signed up to Ukrainian Territorial Defences in a bid to protect their homeland against the Russian aggressors.

“They have the weapons, they don’t have anything else” she announced in a video on Instagram on Saturday. “They don’t have helmets, they don’t have vests, they don’t have food or mobile chargers. The whole banking situation is a disaster. They can’t take money out, and it’s going to take a few days but this is urgent.”

Hercules went on to provide banking details for people to donate directly to her in a bid to get funds to her brother and all the other civilians who are taking up arms. The New York Times also ran a piece on social media over the weekend with images of a young female teacher clutching a gun with tears of fear streaming down her face as she prepared for battle. Such has been the response so far that Hercules’ Paypal account has been overwhelmed and she has now moved her appeal to Revolut in a bid to ensure easier donating.

Addressing concerns about how she might land in hot water for taking donations via her own personal account, Hercules commented; “I will worry about it later. JustGive and other platforms release money after ten days and we just don’t have that long.”

“At the moment we are working around the clock trying to figure out how to send the equipment (helmets, boots, vests, radios) to my brother and another 130 urban fighters (people like me and you, pacifists, professionals, workers, students), as they have nothing apart from a weapon. If we fail to complete this mission I will donate to a UK charity like Unicef or the Red Cross.”

According to Olia, one vest costs £250 with one helmet costing £70. She also asked that IT experts and translators get in touch to offer their assistance to Ukraine remotely. In her appeal on Saturday, Hercules made an emotional plea for help for her country stating: “This is urgent, for Ukraine and also for the people and the security of Europe. It’s my mission to help out. I know it’s going to sound a little weird or lofty, but my whole life, my family’s suffering, everything that we have been through, I have been moving towards this, to launch this thing and to help Ukraine. And I’m going to keep going, indefinitely.”

On Sunday February 27 at around 7pm, Hercules jubilantly announced: “We are there with the money! I wanted to say a massive thank you for donating for helmets, vests, radios for my brother’s 150 civilian strong territorial defence unit. You are all incredible. We can beat this thing, Putin is not making history, we are.”

If you would like to make a donation, you can find details on Olia’s Instagram page: www.instagram.com/oliahercules/.