The Russians created a military base in my childhood home?

It was another busy day of work.

The Russian forces again attacked my home region of the attachment: a region in the southern part of Ukraine, divided between the Russian invaders, who claim that it is all theirs and the protective Ukrainians.

Sitting in my office in central London, I felt nostalgic. I decided to quickly look at the most satellite images of my children’s village – the poetically entitled Verkhnya krynytsya (or upper spring in English), in the occupied with the Russian part of the region, just a few kilometers from the front lines.

I saw the familiar traces of dirt and the houses that drown in lush vegetation. But something caught my eye.

Against the background of all the obvious silence of a small village, which I remember so well, a new feature has emerged: a well -used road. And this led to my home in my childhood.

Satellite images show a path that first appeared in the summer of 2022, four months after the start of the occupation. Winter images have shown that a car is reappearing, which uses it in January 2023.

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

The truth is that my children’s village is no longer quiet. Verkhnya krynytsya was occupied by Russia shortly after the start of the full -scale invasion in February 2022.

At that moment my old house was probably free. My family had sold it a long time ago, but I visited Verkhnya crinita at least once a year before being occupied, and saw the house sitting apparently abandoned, his garden overgrown.

It was hardly surprising: the village was small and sleepy in the best times, and for anyone who was still retirement, the search for work meant to move elsewhere.

But many remained and more than a thousand people were still there when Russia began its invasion. Two days later, the Ukrainian authorities gave out 43 Kalashnikov rifles to help the peasants fight the Russians.

At the collection of the community, residents decided not to use them against the invaders. A month later, the head of the village Sergius Yavorski was captured by the Russians, who beat him and tortured him with electricity, needles and acid, according to the testimony given in the Ukrainian vessel.

The Russians also turned to the processing of the sewage outside the village and set up a command post there after the Ukrainians abandoned the facility.

Even the surroundings of the village have changed irreparably.

Before the full -scale invasion of Russia, Verkhnya crown was sitting on the beautiful reservoir of Kahovka, which was so huge that we called him the “sea”.

You can see it almost everywhere in the village. It was there that the locals swim in the summer and where visitors from all over the region came in the winter to go to ice fishing. One of my worst memories is the local women who sing Ukrainian folk songs while the sun was setting in a warm summer evening.

The sea disappeared after the Kahovka Dam was destroyed in June 2023, leading to devastating floods that ruin the homes and agricultural lands.

To find out what conditions in Verchnya krynytsya are like now, I tried to contact the locals.

The supposed answers was very difficult.

Many have left, and those who are still in the village – as in the other occupied parts of Ukraine – are afraid of talking to the media. The front line locations are particularly inanimate places where the retribution from Russian forces can be fast and brutal.

Social media groups for Verkhnya crime were silent after being occupied and the questions I posted there remained unanswered.

Ask someone to go and look at my house was not about the question. What was previously a calm, sleepy village has become an area of ​​fear.

The danger in verkhnya krynytsya also comes from the sky. The proximity of the village to the front line means that this is a dangerous place exposed to frequent air attacks by Ukrainians.

An acquaintance told me that locals prefer to stay indoors for fear of being hit by drones. “It’s very dangerous there,” I was told. “They are active and can target you, your house or your car. Our village has changed a lot, Vitaly.”

So, given the danger and devastation caused by Verkhna Criniscia by the war, who could possibly make the markings leading to and from my old home?

It is unlikely that someone has chosen to move to the village now – except for Russian soldiers.

Many of them moved to free houses after capturing Verkhna Criniscia. In June 2022, the authorities in the overlap said they had information that Russian troops were staying in the village. This is when satellite images first show signs of the path in my old home.

To see if I was right, to assume that the Russian soldiers were probably moving to my old house, I turned to the Ukrainian 128 detachedly the heavy mechanized brigade that participated in operations in the area.

“You’re not wrong. It’s extremely likely,” I was told by the spokesman Alexander Kurbatov.

As locals run away from frontal areas, they are replaced by Russian military, he said.

“If there are not enough empty houses, demand increases. Of course, this is usually a serviceman from the occupation army,” he told me.

As no one in the village was ready to take the risk of looking at my house, I asked my BBC to check my colleague Richard Ervine-Brown to receive and analyze the latest satellite images. They showed a pattern of movement around the house where I grew up.

In March 2022, there were no signs of the path to the property, a month in the invasion.

In addition to the weak path seen in two satellite images in June, the property seemed ignored. Then the trail reappeared in December and a car was seen to use it in January 2023. We have no images for the property again until August, when the track was well established.

The trail fades and reappears with the seasons, showing that whoever uses it, does it only periodically.

It seems that the property is used in the winter – and probably by Russian soldiers who move to free property. This is plausible because the bite of Ukrainian winters can make too cold for men or their supplies to remain in trenches, improvised housing and storage.

The truth about what happened to my house may not be brought out for a long time – certainly not until the village is under occupation.

For now, it seems that my old home has become a tiny tooth into the wider machine of the Russian war in Ukraine.

Additional reporting by Richard Ervine-Brown