The former British spy who compiled a dossier alleging ties between President Trump and Russian agents also told the FBI that thugs hired by a pro-Kremlin oligarch committed a murder in Washington in 2015.

Mikhail Lesin, former head of the Russian propaganda channel RT, died in a hotel room in November that year. The US authorities concluded that his death was accidental.

However, according to a Buzzfeed website report yesterday, Christopher Steele, the ex-MI6 spy, later filed a secret report to the US government that alleged that Lesin, 59, had been bludgeoned to death by thugs working for an oligarch with ties to President Putin.

Lesin, right, had been press minister to President Putin during his first term REUTERS

It claimed that the founder of RT, who served as an adviser to the Russian president, had been killed accidentally