THIS is the horrifying moment when the Russian “Butcher of Mariupol” demanded to know why one of his own soldiers’ ears hadn’t been severed for wearing the wrong uniform.

In a chilling intercepted phone call, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev appeared to call for the soldier’s “face to be messed up,” and urged others to beat him with a bottle for the error.

Col Mizintsev, dubbed the “Butcher of Mariupol,” is the director of the Russian National Centre for Defence Management.

Ukraine claims that Putin’s general was responsible for both the bombing of a maternity hospital in the city and the shelling of a theatre that was being used as a bomb shelter by up to 1,000 people.

In an audio clip shared by Ukraine’s ex-Austrian ambassador, Olexander Scherba, brutal Col Mizintsev can be heard berating a junior officer for not disciplining a private.

“Look at that scum standing there, frowning with his bovine eyes, showing me his unhappy face, his stinking mug,” a high-ranking military official can be heard saying.