It was another busy day at work.

Russian forces had attacked my home region of Zaporizhzhia again: a region in the south of Ukraine, split between the Russian invaders, who claim it all as theirs, and the defending Ukrainians.

Sitting in my office in central London, I was feeling nostalgic. I decided to take a quick look at the latest satellite images of my childhood village - the poetically titled Verkhnya Krynytsya (or Upper Spring in English), in the Russian-occupied part of the region, just a few kilometers from the front lines.

I could see the familiar dirt tracks, and the houses drowning in lush vegetation. But something caught my eye.

Amid all the apparent quiet of a small village that I remember so well, a new feature had appeared: a well-used road. And it led right to my childhood home.

Satellite images show a path first appearing in the summer of 2022, four months after the occupation began. Images from winter showed it reappearing and a car making use of it in January 2023.

I could think of only one group of people who could be using the path in an occupied village so close to the front line: Russian soldiers. Only they have reason to be out and about in a war zone.

Verkhnya Krynytsya

The truth is that my childhood village is not quiet anymore. Verkhnya Krynytsya was occupied by Russia shortly after the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

By that point, my old house was likely vacant. My family had sold it long ago, but I visited Verkhnya Krynytsya at least once a year before it was occupied and saw the house sitting apparently abandoned, its garden overgrown.

It was hardly surprising: the village was small and sleepy at the best of times, and for anyone still under retirement age, looking for work meant moving elsewhere.

But many stayed, and more than a thousand people were still there when Russia launched its invasion. Two days later, Ukrainian authorities handed out 43 Kalashnikov rifles to help the villagers fight off the Russians.

At a community gathering, residents decided not to use them against the invaders. A month later, village head Serhiy Yavorsky was captured by the Russians, who beat and tortured him with electricity, needles, and acid, according to testimony given in a Ukrainian court.

The Russians also targeted a sewage treatment works outside the village and set up a command post there once the Ukrainians had abandoned the facility.

New residents

Given the danger and devastation caused to Verkhnya Krynytsya by the war, who could have possibly made the track marks leading to and from my old home?

It is highly unlikely anyone would choose to move to the village now - with the exception of Russian soldiers.

Many of them moved into vacant houses after capturing Verkhnya Krynytsya. In June 2022, authorities in Zaporizhzhia said they had information that Russian troops were staying in the village. This is when the satellite images first show signs of the path at my old home.

To check if I was right in assuming that Russian soldiers had likely moved into my old house, I approached the Ukrainian 128th Detached Heavy Mechanised Brigade, which is involved in operations in the area.

You're not wrong. It's extremely likely, its spokesman Oleksandr Kurbatov told me.

As locals have been fleeing frontline areas, they are being replaced with Russian military, he said.

If there are not enough empty houses, demand is running high. Of course, it's usually military personnel from the occupation army, he told me.