Patrick Lancaster

Last updated

Patrick Lancaster
Patrick Lancaster.jpg
Patrick Lancaster in 2023
Born
Missouri, United States
Occupation Vlogger
YouTube information
Channel
Years active2014–present
Genres
Subscribers882 thousand
Views85 million
Last updated: August 2025

Patrick Lancaster is an American vlogger, described as a US Military veteran being used by Russia to help spread Russian propaganda about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [1] [2] [3] [4] Lancaster has also been widely accused of filming staged scenes in his YouTube videos and spreading disinformation. [5] [6] [7] [8]

Contents

Biography

Early life and US Navy

Lancaster is originally from Missouri in the United States of America. [9] [10] From 2001 to 2006 he was a sailor in the US Navy specializing as a cryptologic technician and rising to the rank of petty officer third class. He sailed on the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) from 2002 to 2006. [7]

Ukraine and Russia

2014–2021

Lancaster arrived in Ukraine in March 2014 to cover the aftermath of the Maidan revolution, settling in Donetsk later that year. [5] From 2015 on, Lancaster has primarily created videos for his own YouTube channel. [11]

MH17

Lancaster has produced videos in which he describes finding skeletal remains from Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and has claimed the flight was shot down by Ukrainian forces. [12] [13] [14] [5] MH17 victims' families have criticized Lancaster's lack of regard for their loved ones' remains, and Dutch media has accused him of exploiting the tragedy. [15] [16] [17] [ verify paraphrase ]

Russo-Ukrainian war

Lancaster has vlogged mostly from Russian-controlled territories of Ukraine since 2022, in the early days of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vice Media and NBC News described him as the most popular of the pro-Kremlin influencers spreading Russian propaganda and disinformation on YouTube. [11] Investigative journalism agency Bellingcat has reported that Lancaster's videos have exposed a staged Russian IED attack, and revealed the identity of a Russian perpetrator of a war crime. [3] [4] In 2024, Lancaster's videos from Russia's Kursk region in the context of Ukraine's Kursk campaign showed local residents speaking positively about the Ukrainian army. [18]

In late April 2025, Lancaster gave an interview to Tucker Carlson where he dismissed claims of North Korean troops in Russia, stating that he had not found them "not for the lack of trying". [19] [ non-primary source needed ] In September 2025, the ruling pro-Russian party in Georgia banned Lancaster from entering the country. [20]

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Over the years, Lancaster has sporadically created videos on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict for his YouTube channel. [11] Lancaster has been accused of producing fake news and staged videos on the conflict. [6]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Schogol, Jeff. "How Russia uses US military veterans in its propaganda war against Ukraine". Task and Purpose . Retrieved 22 November 2025.
  2. ↑ Emma, Vardy (22 April 2022). "Russian propaganda efforts aided by pro-Kremlin content creators, research finds". NBC News . Retrieved 17 January 2023. The most popular of the pro-Kremlin influencers identified by researchers is Patrick Lancaster, a Missouri-born Navy intelligence veteran and self-described independent crowdfunded journalist embedded with the Russian army. Since December, Lancaster's YouTube channel has grown from 57,500 subscribers to more than 500,000, with daily dispatches from Russian-occupied Ukraine. His videos are often breathless reports with graphic footage of dead bodies, violence for which Lancaster claims Ukraine is responsible. The scene in at least one video was reportedly staged. Lancaster often appears on Russian state media and on the Texas-based conspiracy theory radio show "Infowars." Below Lancaster's YouTube videos, he posts, "I show what the western media will not show you."
  3. 1 2 Waters, Nick (28 February 2022). "'Exploiting Cadavers 'and 'Faked IEDs': Experts Debunk Staged Pre-War 'Provocation' in the Donbas". Bellingcat . Retrieved 14 July 2022.
  4. 1 2 Bellingcat (25 November 2022). "Tracking the Faceless Killers who Mutilated and Executed a Ukrainian POW" . Retrieved 18 November 2024.
  5. 1 2 3 Humeniuk, Oleksandr (27 June 2022). "From the Lancaster family: The story of an American reporter who settled in the DNR, was friends with Givi and used morgue bodies for fake news". Zaborona. Archived from the original on 25 March 2025.
  6. 1 2 Orzeł, Karol (29 July 2022). "Patrick Lancaster – freelance journalist, propagandist or ideologist? Analysis". FakeNews.pl. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
  7. 1 2 Schogol, Jeff (19 April 2022). "How a former US Navy sailor became a Putin propagandist". taskandpurpose.com. Task and Purpose . Retrieved 15 July 2022.
  8. ↑ "Who Is the Journalist Shown in the Video Being Expelled From the Demonstration by Protesters?". Myth Detector. 12 December 2024. Retrieved 25 March 2025.
  9. ↑ Paladino, Jason; van Wagtendonk, Anya (18 April 2022). "Meet Patrick Lancaster: A U.S. Navy veteran from Missouri and Russia's favorite war propagandist". Grid News. Retrieved 14 July 2022.
  10. ↑ Fornusek, Martin (1 September 2022). "Meet the foreign journalists promoting Russia's war propaganda". Euromaidan Press.
  11. 1 2 3 Gilbert, David (9 June 2022). "Meet the US 'Journalist' Helping Spread the Kremlin's Propaganda". Vice . Retrieved 30 November 2022.
  12. ↑ "Mogelijk opnieuw menselijke resten MH17-ramp gevonden". RTL Nieuws . 21 July 2017. Retrieved 15 July 2022.
  13. ↑ Kerstens, Bonne (14 November 2017). "Menselijke resten MH17-slachtoffers geïdentificeerd". BN DeStem . Retrieved 14 July 2022.
  14. ↑ Van der Peet, Annick (5 October 2017). "Opnieuw mogelijk menselijke resten MH17 gevonden". BN DeStem . Retrieved 14 July 2022.
  15. ↑ "Gevonden botresten zijn van slachtoffers MH-17". Leeuwarder Courant . 14 November 2017. Retrieved 14 July 2022.
  16. ↑ "Gevonden botresten zijn van slachtoffers MH-17". Dagblad van het Noorden . 14 November 2017. Retrieved 14 July 2022.
  17. ↑ "Appel op journalist om stoffelijke resten MH17". Reformatorisch Dagblad . 10 September 2018. Retrieved 15 July 2022.
  18. ↑ "Pro-Kremlin blogger Patrick Lancaster heard the truth about the Armed Forces of Ukraine from residents of Kurshchyna". Apostrophe. 29 March 2025. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
  19. ↑ "Transcript of Patrick Lancaster on The Tucker Carlson Show". 26 April 2025. Retrieved 17 May 2025.
  20. ↑ "Pro-Kremlin Blogger Patrick Lancaster Denied Entry to Georgia, Russian Media Reports". 25 September 2025. Retrieved 26 October 2025.
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