The villages near Kharkiv were recovering. Fleeing again, their people feel betrayed by the west – and I understand why | Ada Wordsworth

After 20 months of relative peace, the homes and lives my charity has been helping rebuild are on the frontline once more

The Russian offensive on the Kharkiv region this month has, after 20 months of relative peace, again placed many of the villages where my charity works, repairing homes destroyed by bombs, at the forefront of the war.

I began volunteering in Kharkiv two years ago, having dropped out of my master's degree in Russian literature and set up the charity to support Ukrainians. After the region's liberation in September 2022, hundreds of thousands of people had started to return to Kharkiv city and the wider region from other parts of Ukraine, and countries that had taken them in as refugees. The villages where I work were reawakening, the craters that lined the streets had been filled, shops were reopening, electricity was back on. People's return was mostly driven by a desire to be at home.

Ada Wordsworth is the co-founder of KHARPP, a grassroots project repairing homes in eastern Ukraine

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