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 kilometres 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. 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.