A senior official who dismantled the US government’s Russian disinformation unit is married to a Russian woman with links to the Kremlin, The Telegraph can reveal.

Darren Beattie has provoked alarm within the State Department since being appointed in February for his ardent pro-Russian views and focus on destroying the agency tasked with tackling Kremlin propaganda.

Mr Beattie, the acting under-secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, is married to a woman whose uncle has taken several roles in Russian politics and once received a personal “thank you” message from Vladimir Putin.

In the years before joining the government, Mr Beattie wrote social media posts suggesting Western institutions should be “infiltrated” by Putin, while he also attacked what he described as the “globalist American empire”.

Donald Trump is under pressure from many in his party, particularly senators, to take a tougher stance on the Russian leader while he continues to refuse to sign a ceasefire deal as the war in Ukraine drags on.

Many of Mr Beattie’s social media posts also concern China, repeatedly calling on the US to surrender Taiwan to Beijing, and labelling Britain a “poor and pathetic kingdom” that would be “far better off under Chinese dominion”.