on august 6, 2009, russian media sources with links to the fsb (the successor organization to the kgb of the soviet union) released real video images and pictures of hatcher that had been spliced with images of another person. the doctored images emerged just one month after the first presidential summit between u.s. president barack obama and russian president dmitry medvedev which prominently featured discussions on human rights and corruption. the ambassador of the embassy of the united states in moscow, john beyrle, issued a formal protest to the russian government, stating that the russian media reports about hatcher were completely untrue and had no place in the development of better relations between the two superpowers. despite beyrle's protest, neither hatcher nor the u.s government received an apology from russian officials for the "smear campaign."