The former archbishop of York has said that Vladimir Putin will 'have one day to answer to God' for the 'absolute viciousness' he is unleashing on the Ukrainian people.

John Sentamu, 72, questioned how the president, who identifies as a Russian Orthodox Christian, can say his prayers at night after inflicting acts of 'evil' in Ukraine.

The Russian Orthodox Church has backed Putin's invasion of Ukraine that has seen the Russian President accused of war crimes.

Mass graves were found at the weekend on the outskirts of Ukraine's capital Kyiv, as Ukrainians claimed Russian forces 'booby-trap corpses and execute civilians while retreating from recaptured Kyiv area'.

Territorial defence fighters told The Times they found the mutilated bodies of 18 people, including women and children as young as 14, in a cellar.

Mr Sentamu joined other church leaders yesterday (Sunday) in saying prayers outside the Ukrainian Embassy in Holland Park, west London.

Around a hundred Christians, including some from Ukraine, held a minute's silence for the war-torn country while holding blue and yellow hearts in the air.

Mr Sentamu described Ukraine as a 'very, very strong Christian country' and condemned the violence seen over the weekend in Bucha, near Kyiv, as 'brutality, absolute viciousness'.

When asked whether Mr Putin can ever be forgiven for his actions in the eyes of the church, Mr Sentamu said: 'First of all, the people who are going to forgive him are the Ukrainians, and the rest of us can try to remind him that the Cross of Jesus is the end of violence.

'If you really wear a cross like I do, you must be non-violent.

'To unleash such brutality is just beyond me.

'If I was a Russian Orthodox Bishop, actually, I would be going and telling Putin that what he's doing is contrary to the love of God, contrary to humanity as we know it, contrary really to anything else.

'To invade another free country in the way he is doing is just not on.

'He will have one day to answer to God.'

When asked whether he held any hope in the ability of Christian leaders to appeal to Mr Putin through religious reasoning, he said: 'What I would say to him, is whenever you see the poor, the vulnerable, looking at you - that's Jesus looking at you.

'Because he [Jesus] is among the poor, the weak, the vulnerable, the unloved.

'So Putin, if he is saying he is doing all this - how can he say his prayers at night, particularly that phrase in the Lord's Prayer: "Deliver us from evil?"

'How can he do evil acts and then say: "I'm on God's side" - never, never, never.'

Horrific images emerged of bodies strewn across the streets of commuter town Bucha, which was retaken by Ukrainian forces on Friday.

However, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church held a service for Russian soldiers on Sunday in which he called on them to defend their country 'as only Russians can' as Moscow continues its military campaign in Ukraine.

At the lavishly decorated Main Cathedral of the Armed Forces opened two years ago in Kubinka outside Moscow, Patriarch Kirill told a group of servicemen and servicewomen that Russia was a 'peace-loving' country that had suffered greatly from war.

'We absolutely do not strive for war or to do anything that could harm others,' said the patriarch, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin.

'But we have been raised throughout our history to love our fatherland. And we will be ready to protect it, as only Russians can defend their country.'

Kirill's support for the military intervention, in which thousands of soldiers and Ukrainian civilians have been killed, has angered some within the Orthodox church at home as well as in churches abroad linked to the Moscow Patriarchate.