When Russia began its invasion, Ukraine quickly switched into a wartime economy.

Companies from miners to property developers began making antitank fortifications. A women’s shoe brand started using its luxury Italian leather to make military boots. The government issued war bonds to finance the military.

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When Russia began its invasion, Ukraine quickly switched into a wartime economy.

Companies from miners to property developers began making antitank fortifications. A women’s shoe brand started using its luxury Italian leather to make military boots. The government issued war bonds to finance the military.

Two weeks into the war, Russian forces have faced much stiffer resistance than most Western experts had anticipated. This is partly due to the training and Western weaponry that Ukrainian armed forces have received since Russia’s 2014 invasion, but also to Moscow’s military miscalculations.

Another reason is the speed at which civil society has embraced the war effort. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged Ukrainians to take up arms and assist the military in any way possible. Many companies have answered the call, keeping factories and offices open despite the threat of missile attacks. The government has redirected its funds toward the military, and the central bank launched a crowdfunding campaign within hours of Russia’s forces rolling in.

“We’ve moved into a war economy,” said Tymofiy Mylovanov, an adviser to Mr. Zelensky’s administration and a former economy minister. “Now plants that made sweaters are making weapons.”

On Feb. 24, Sergii Pylypenko, chief executive of property developer Kovalska Industrial-Construction Group, was woken up by the missile attacks that marked the start of Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

A man in Lviv, Ukraine, welding antitank road blocks to send to Kyiv.

Mr. Pylypenko gathered the management for an urgent conference call and a decision was made: to cease operations at Kovalska’s 13 factories, and at various building sites. But instead of completely closing shop, the company quickly redirected its efforts to helping the military.

It handed over its entire fleet of 600 vehicles, including concrete mixers, dump trucks and excavators to the Ukrainian army. Some of its dump trucks have been converted into antiaircraft missile systems.

Kovalska also gave the military over two tons of TNT and other explosives, which it normally uses to blast rock in its granite quarries. Recently, it started production of hedgehogs, the giant metal Xs used as antitank obstacles, for reinforcing military checkpoints.

“We are a family company and we have only one way—to win this war and then to rebuild Ukraine,” Mr. Pylypenko said.

Steel-and-mining group Metinvest also switched its production facilities and plants to making antitank obstacles. The company said Thursday that it has provided the military with 3,500 hedgehogs and more than 2,000 concrete blocks for shelters.

An iron and steelworks in Mariupol, Ukraine, that is part of Metinvest.

Such donations are small compared with what Ukraine’s allies in Europe and the U.S. are providing in terms of military and financial assistance. NATO members have mounted a sizable operation in recent days to transfer weapons and resupply Ukrainian soldiers. In the U.S., Congress passed a spending package that includes $13.6 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine, including support for the military.

Many Ukrainian businesses have sought to augment this international effort. At Kachorovska, a high-end women’s shoe brand dating back to 1957, Chief Executive

Alina Kachorovska was just back from a Milan leather exhibition when the invasion began. The company, which usually sells items like red leather pumps and beige loafers, saw a growing number of requests from all over the country for another type of shoe: army boots.

Kachorovska began contacting other factories to look for soles and laces. It used some of its own materials, originally earmarked for the spring/summer collection, including expensive Italian leather in dark olive.

“It’s very different than our usual shoes,” Ms. Kachorovska said. “But we clearly understood that we needed to start doing something, to support the army, to support the country.”

Some 40 workers go to work at several factories, their days punctuated by air-raid sirens. Ms. Kachorovska wouldn’t disclose the factories’ precise location out of security fears, but said the town was under bomb attacks almost daily. The company has produced around 700 pairs of army boots and requests continue to pour in.

Russia escalated its attacks on Mariupol in a push to capture the strategic port city; two Ukrainian refugees enter Poland every three seconds; Russian military vehicles were deployed around 20 miles from Kyiv, according to satellite imagery. Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition

Communication agency ISD Group decided to focus on another front of the war: Russian disinformation.

With Moscow cranking up its propaganda machine and muzzling independent coverage of the war at home, ISD founder and managing partner Viktor Shkurba said he wanted to show Russians the reality on the ground: “blown-up columns of military equipment, the prisoners, the corpses.”

The agency set up a team of over 60 people who collect information and populate a map of Russia and Ukraine with pictures and videos from the war. The names of captured or killed Russian soldiers are linked to the city they are from.

“This way is more likely to reach [their] relatives,” Mr. Shkurba said.

ISD Group founder Viktor Shkurba, in yellow hat, with other employees of the company in Lviv, Ukraine.

Photo: Justyna Mielnikiewicz /MAPS for The Wall Street Journal

Reaching the Russian public has been a challenge given state censorship, including the Kremlin’s blockage of Facebook and Twitter. Mr. Shkurba and his team spread their material via messaging app Telegram, which is popular in Russia, through Ukrainians who have family and friends in Russia, and by buying ads on Russian websites.

“We are still trying to find their blind zones,” Mr. Shkurba said.

Charities have also joined the fray. Come Back Alive, which has been active since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, has donated drones, heat visors, flak jackets and other equipment worth over 700 million hryvnia, equivalent to around $23 million, to the army. Charity Army SOS has raised money for shields, radio stations and tactical medical kits.

FESTrepublic, a collection of local restaurants in Lviv, is working with the relief group World Central Kitchen to prepare and distribute free meals in the city.

When Russia began dropping bombs on Kyiv, officials at Ukraine’s central bank quickly ditched orthodox monetary policies. The bank set up crowdfunding accounts for donations for the troops and humanitarian aid, collecting nearly $400 million so far. Ukraine later issued war bonds, raising around $270 million.

As part of its fundraising, Kyiv is planning to issue NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, which act as virtual deeds conveying ownership of a digital asset.

“We do not pretend that we are now in normal circumstances and so we can’t rely on the standard market-friendly monetary tool kit,” said Sergiy Nikolaychuk, deputy governor at the National Bank of Ukraine. “We started to adjust these measures to the changing circumstances from day one of the war.”

Write to Georgi Kantchev at georgi.kantchev@wsj.com