The British government has distanced the incoming head of its foreign intelligence service from her grandfather following reports he was a Nazi spy known as “the butcher”.

Blaise Metreweli will in the autumn become the first woman to lead MI6 in its 116-year-old history, the British government announced earlier this month.

The Daily Mail newspaper reported this week that her grandfather Constantine Dobrowolski defected from the Soviet Union’s Red Army to become a Nazi informant in the Chernigiv region of modern-day Ukraine.

The newspaper said German archives showed Dobrowolski was known as “the Butcher” or “Agent No 30” by Wehrmacht commanders.