Wife of controversial top State Department official has ties to Russia – media

Acting US Deputy Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Darren Beattie is married to Russian Yulia Kirillova, whose uncle held various positions in Russian politics.

Trump dismissed Beattie from his first administration in 2018 for his participation in a conference of white nationalists. After that, he became an active promoter of American far-right ideas.

Among other things, Beattie wrote that the US was trying to organize “color revolutions” around the world, including in Ukraine, and praised Russian dictator Putin as a “bold and strong leader.”

In many posts, the current top State Department official called on the US to hand Taiwan over to Beijing and called the UK a “poor and pitiful kingdom.” These posts are still available online.

According to public records, Beattie married Russian citizen Yulia Kirilova in Florida in May 2021. She moved to Washington on January 28, about a week before her husband started working at the US State Department, The Telegraph reported.

Social media indicates that Kirilova was educated in Moscow and then studied in Canada and Washington. She is the niece of Sergei Chernikov, a Russian alcohol industry tycoon who held positions in the Russian executive branch in the 2000s, as well as in the so-called Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, nominally designed to monitor the activities of the government.

According to The Telegraph, Beattie played a leading role in the liquidation of R/FIMI, a State Department structure that tracked and countered propaganda from Russia, China, and Iran, with a budget of just over $50 million.

At the same time, the publication’s sources add, Beattie allegedly insisted on resuming cultural exchanges with Russia in the fields of ballet and hockey and was also interested in classified materials related to the Russian Federation.

The previous US administration, under President Biden, imposed numerous sanctions against Russian propagandists and began their criminal prosecution.