VLADIMIR Putin ordered the Salisbury novichok assassin to murder British spy Christopher Steele who penned the sensational Trump sex dossier, a ex-top Russian spy claimed.

Mishkin, 39, used the alias Alexander Petrov for the botched hit on the double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yuliain March.

Last week it emerged his accomplice Russian Boshirov was unmasked as Russian spy chief Anatolly Chepiga and Mishkin is really a doctor in the country’s military intelligence.

But he now faces allegations of plotting to use novichok on former MI6 officer Christopher Steele during a visit to UK a year before the Salisbury attack, reports the Sunday People.

KGB defector Boris Karphichkov, 59, claims Mishkin belonged to a special ops group which slipped into the country in late February 2017.

He says a source told him they were here to kill Steele, 54, on the direct orders of Putin.

Karpichkov said: "I was told Steele was to be liquidated using the same stuff as the Skripals.

"The assassins initially conducted surveillance both on Steele’s house in Farnham, Surrey, and at his London office.

"The operation was aborted when they realised the house was guarded with a lot of CCTV.

"As they also quickly established he was not appearing at his office, they concluded it was too risky to carry out the operation."

The bid came after Steele was outed as the author of a 35-page dossier which claimed Russia has a file of compromising information on Trump.

This included sex tapes, and that he was supported by the Kremlin for five years before his election as US President.

The most eye-catching claim was that in 2013 Trump hired prostitutes to urinate on the bed of the Presidential Suite at the Moscow Ritz Carlton, as he knew Barack and Michelle Obama had previously stayed there.

The report states: "Trump's unorthodox behavior in Russia over the years had provided the authorities there with enough embarrassing material on the now Republican presidential candidate to be able to blackmail him if they so wished."

Putin is said to have been raging at this and wanted Steele dead for ruining his relations with Trump.