A Ukrainian mother has told of her teenage daughter’s heartbreak after she was forced to leave the majority of her Doctor Who collection in Kyiv.

As Russian forces invaded their country last month, Mari Sai’s family had to flee Ukraine’s capital and embark on a search for safety.

While her husband stayed behind, she took her teenage children, her own mother, her mother-in-law and two pets across 1,300 miles of European territory before finding refuge in Belgium.

In their Kyiv home, Mari’s daughter Sophia, 16, had amassed an impressive Doctor Who collection.

It included several Daleks, Cybermen, a Davros, multiple models of robotic canine K-9, a TARDIS, its central control column, a sonic screwdriver and a massive number of action figures.

Multiple versions of David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor featured in the collection alongside Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor, Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, as played by Elisabeth Sladen as well as Rose Tyler and Martha Jones, who were played by Billie Piper and Freema Agyeman.

There was also a veritable menagerie of monsters which included an Ood, the Moxx of Balhoon from season one episode ‘The End of the World’, a clockwork robot from season two episode ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’ and some Slitheen.

By the time Mari and her family were pictured in Belgium, her daughter had just a Tenth Doctor, Eleventh Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, a clockwork robot and ‘The Only Good Dalek’ book.

“From a huge Doctor Who collection, now my daughter has got only this,” said Mari.

“But we are safe.

“From 25th of February to 2nd of March, we were on the road for 2,187 kilometres with two grandmothers, a cat and a dog and two teenage children.”

“[My daughter] is crazy about Doctor Who,” she added in a video recorded on her YouTube channel, which showed her daughter’s impressive drawings of Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor.

“She is very sad all her collection is in Kyiv. She has got only this book [and a few toys].”

The journey Mari and her family have taken from Ukraine to Belgium has been a hard one. Making the long journey, they were limited in what they could salvage from their lives in Kyiv.

On top of the clothes they brought with her, her daughter’s luggage was limited to a pair of boots, a laptop, a musical instrument called a kalimba, a pencil case and a notebook.

“I don’t know what happened with our house and with my mother’s flat,” said Mari.

“We don’t know anything about it.”

Mari herself brought very little beyond her laptop, hard drives and phone while her son brought a wrestling toy, a teddy bear and a book about defence equipment.

“My son is 14. He wanted to protect Ukraine,” said Mari.

“But he is too small for it. So we are here, but he is ready.

“He knows all about this book.”

One of the hardest parts of leaving behind her life in Ukraine was having to be apart from her husband, who stayed in the country.

“He is ready to protect our Ukraine,” Mari said.

“I wanted to stay in Ukraine too but I need to move our mothers and kids and pets and get them to a safe place.”

The journey Mari’s family has taken since leaving Kyiv last month has been a gruelling one, especially when they ran into some problems in Slovakia, which borders with Ukraine.

“There were difficulties in Ubl’a,” she explained. “I crossed the border with animals but in Ubl’a is absolutely nothing adapted for dogs.

“The others waited while I tried to find out what to do next.

“We had to find a lodging for the night and continue to travel with transfers by trains.

“My children were sitting outside with a cat and it was cold. I couldn’t spend the night, with a dog, where there are small children.”

Mari found that not everyone around her on this journey was as supportive as she would have liked.

“One volunteer said that it was necessary not to take animals from Ukraine,” she said.

“Other volunteers said to go somewhere by bus with children for eight hours and look for accommodation there for the night.

“One said that in general this shelter is only for 20 minutes and we have to leave the premises.

“In the end, I went outside with the dog.

“I stood there and just cried.

“I didn’t know what to do.

“I appealed to everyone. Many volunteers sympathised and brought blankets and food.”

Just when Mari needed it, the kindness of a stranger was her salvation during her hour of need.