Leading the horse out of the stables on a sunny day in Kalnikow, a small village in Poland near the Ukrainian border, Iefimova said she drove to Ukraine two weeks ago to rescue it from harm’s way.

“I know that my horse would be left alone in Ukraine and very soon there was not enough food and it was quite dangerous to keep him there,” said the 37-year-old, who has been living abroad for some years.

Before the war she said she had applied for EU documents to bring the horse to Estonia and had been expecting to get him there in April.

The journey to rescue Vasya and seven other horses from a small village near Kyiv took days of driving and involved sleeping in freezing stables. The convoy even ran out of petrol at certain points during the trip, Iefimova said.

“It was a very, very complicated journey… Right now we just need to take some rest,” Iefimova said.