One year on: How the South West has opened its arms to Ukraine

A year on from Russia's invasion of Ukraine people's determination to raise funds and collect supplies for those still trapped in the war zone has continued unabated.

There's also a continuing resolve to help the thousands of people who have fled to the UK.

Masha Shevchenko was in her final year of university in Bristol when war broke out.

She held fundraisers and did everything she could to help, raising tens of thousands of pounds in the process.

Masha is part of the Rucksack Project which runs monthly events and provides psychological care for displaced Ukrainian children and their parents. It uses a book she worked around the clock with contributors to create.

"The inspiration from this project has been seeing children leaving Ukraine with just a rucksack on their back, so their entire lives have just been contained in this one small rucksack," Masha said.

"It's a book written by Di Redmond who is the author of Bob the Builder and Fireman Sam, so she's well known in the UK and she really wanted to help as well.

"It's really shown the way that people in the UK have really wanted to support Ukranians as well, which has been really touching. We've also got a really wonderful illustrator who illustrated the book within 10 days in an occupied area of Ukraine. She was illustrating this book under constant shelling and bombing."

• Watch ITV News' report from Annie Knowlson in Bristol and Cheltenham

Masha has family and friends still in Ukraine. She says she's proud of the way that people have come together and the resilience they've shown.

She said: "We've all volunteered on creating first aid kits and sent them back across to Ukraine. For example, my Grandma is 81 and in the first week of the war she was evacuated.

"Rather than sitting still and relaxing after a four-day arduous trip over multiple countries she turned to me and said 'right where is all of the kit for the first aid kits, where are all of the medicines? I'm here to help'."

There are currently 1,780 Ukrainians who have taken refuge in Devon with a further 556 in Cornwall.

Ira Ternovska and Serhii Kyrychenko moved to St Austell in June with their son Denys.

Ira's held a couple of craft workshops with ladies in the town trying to get some good publicity for her artwork. She said: "I teach British ladies - I was very happy because I was like at home. Because at home every day I make flowers."

Ira and Serheii said thought they'd only be in the UK for two months, but they are frightened of what might happen on the anniversary of the war.

Serheii said: "We are afraid because we know something will definitely happen. And I hope our country can deal with it with courage like it used to be all the time."

Seeing this need for help is what motivated Callington taxi driver Darren Tait and his friends to take their first convoy of aid last March as the group 'Cornwall & Devon Helping Ukraine'.

• Watch ITV News' report from Charlotte Gay in Cornwall

They're now preparing to drive over their 100th van to the Polish city of Warsaw, filled with a long list of medicines and supplies needed to survive living through a war.

Mr Tait said: "It's going to be 10 years, you know, even if the war stopped tomorrow. The amount of devastation that's out there, the amount of mental illness that's going to be, the number of displaced people, the number of orphans that there's going to be, they're going to need looking after."

Sending medical aid is something that Khaled El-Mayet from Cheltenham knows all about.

After seeing the devastation he founded Ambulances for Ukraine.

So far the organisation has raised more than £300,000, sent 20 ambulances, eight neonatal incubators and four and a half tonnes of medical supplies.

He said: "There's still a very urgent need for ambulances, whether it's them getting destroyed because of how poor the roads are, because they've been hit by missiles or they've been hit themselves.

"Incubators are very much still needed and generators are in vital demand because hospitals and other medical centres need power."

"Over the last six months, we've had hundreds of people reaching out wanting to do something similar so at the moment one of my key focuses is sharing my network and experiences and contacts so they can go raise some money and get these supplies where they're needed most in Ukraine."