A Russian commander accused of committing "utterly inhuman" war crimes in Bucha, Ukraine has been revealed as a veteran soldier recently blessed by the Orthodox Church.
Lieutenant Colonel Azatbek Omurbekov has been dubbed the 'Butcher of Bucha' after leading the unit that occupied the town then massacred hundreds of civilians.
Ukrainian volunteer group InformNapalm, which monitors Russia's military and special services, first identified him and called him the "military villain" behind the massacre.
Russian troops under his command allegedly murdered unarmed civilians and there have been reports of women and children being brutally raped, the Times of London reported.
Mass graves have been discovered after Russian soldiers retreated and left Bucha and corpses were reportedly found with their hands tied behind their backs.
Satellite images suggest some bodies had been there since at least March 18, CNN said.
Dame Barbara Woodward, the United Kingdom's UN ambassador, called images coming from Bucha "harrowing, appalling, probable evidence of war crimes, and possibly a genocide".
In November last year, Omurbekov was blessed by an Orthodox priest ahead of his deployment to Ukraine.
"History shows that we fight most of our battles with our souls," he reportedly said following the service.
"Weapons are not the most important thing. The church is a place where we can take Communion and prepare for the coming events.
"With the blessing of the Almighty, we hope to achieve the same things that our forebears achieved."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of committing genocide during their invasion.
"Indeed, this is genocide - the elimination of the whole nation and the people," he told CBS on Sunday.
He said Russia's invasion is about "the destruction and extermination" of the more than 100 nationalities in his country.
"We are the citizens of Ukraine and we don't want to be subdued to the policy of the Russian Federation, and this is the reason we are being destroyed and exterminated."
Zelensky also told the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday (local time) that "accountability must be inevitable" for Russia after he accused Russian troops of committing "the most terrible war crimes" since World War Two.
He showed a short video of burned, bloodied, and mutilated bodies, including children, in Irpin, Dymerka, Mariupol, and Bucha.
The Ukraine President went on to accuse Russian troops of killing civilians "just for their pleasure" and called for officers to be held accountable in war crime prosecutions "similar to the Nuremberg tribunals" that followed World War Two.
"The Russian military and those who gave them orders must be brought to justice immediately for war crimes in Ukraine," he said.
"Anyone who has given criminal orders, or carried them out by killing our people, will be brought before a tribunal."
Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov called the Russian troops in Bucha "utterly inhuman" and compared them to Nazis.
"This is what the SS troops used to do in the past," he said.
"This evil simply cannot go unpunished. Our intelligence is consistently identifying all invaders and killers. All of them. And each killer will at his own time get what he deserves."
