The U.S. Embassy in Moscow has launched a formal diplomatic complaint over what it claims is a phony video of a married U.S. diplomat meeting the local talent.

Last month, the Russian-language website Komsomolskaya Pravda posted footage of a man it claimed to be American diplomat Kyle Hatcher paying a call on a prostitute. In an interview broadcast late last night on ABC, Ambassador John Beyrle said the video was "clearly fabricated," and said a complaint had been lodged with Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

ABC News has posted the grainy video here (WARNING: Sleazy saxophone music). It also features audio recordings of a man who speaks Russian with an American accent making phone calls to Inna, Sonya and Veronika. ("Will you be free in an hour?" he asks Veronika. "In an hour and a half," she replies.)

Some patterns may be discerned here. Earlier this year, British diplomat James Hudson (pictured here) was forced to resign after video footage of him enjoying champagne and a three-way with Russian call girls was posted on the internet. Three years ago, Russian television was blanketed with footage of a British diplomat using a fake rock to plant spy gear. Like Hatcher, the accused British diplomat was a liaison to human rights and civil society organizations.

Of course, diplomats are well aware of – and are briefed on – the dangers of the "honey pot": seduction as a tool for recruitment or entrapment. And Russia has a rich tradition of political blackmail. The Russians even have a word for it: компромат (kompromat, a contraction of the phrase "compromising materials"). One of the more famous incidents in recent Russian history involved Yury Skuratov, the country's top prosecutor. In April 1999, Russian state television broadcast footage of a man resembling Skuratov in a three-way romp with a couple of prostitutes; the incident cut short the career of Skuratov, who had been investigating high-level corruption inside the Kremlin.

The head of the FSB, the successor to the KGB, held a press conference claiming that the man caught on tape was indeed Skuratov. The FSB chief at the time? None other than former President (and current Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin.

[Photo: Telegraph.co.uk]

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