A Ukrainian who faced deportation has spoken of her joy at taking her first step towards British citizenship.

Eleonora Suhoviy, arrived from Ukraine at the age of 13 unable to speak a word of English, but went on to become a talented scholar, concert pianist and dancer.

However she fell foul of Home Office rules because she had arrived on her mother's six-month tourist visa and did not win leave to stay after that - until she won her final appeal to an asylum and immigration tribunal four months ago.

Now the 25-year-old - who graduated from Oxford University and works as a personal assistant at the John Radcliffe Hospital's oncology department - has been granted three years' leave to remain in the UK.

If that is renewed, Miss Suhoviy will be able to apply for British citizenship in 2011 and follow her ultimate dream of becoming an intelligence officer in the Navy.

She told the Oxford Mail: "I am absolutely delighted, happy and relieved because it is the first time the Home Office has accepted my case and it means I can pursue my goals with some freedom and certainty.

"I have a new sense of security to make plans and now I'll look at my options.

"I want to be an officer in the armed forces and you need to be a citizen for that.

"The armed forces exemplifies the values I ask of myself: loyalty, integrity and being ready to engage in something bigger than yourself and not putting your interest first."

"I would be able to serve my country. It's been my country for as long as I have lived here."

Miss Suhoviy, who lives in Osler Road, Headington, was brought to England by her mother, Svetlana - a "passionate Anglophile" - at the age of 13 following her parents' divorce.

She taught herself English by reading Sherlock Holmes novels, which she already knew by heart in Russian translation, and graduated from Exeter College in modern languages.

Her fight to stay in Britain attracted high-profile support from the likes of Lord Carrington, Jeremy Paxton and the Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries.

She added: "People here have never viewed me as an outsider."