Patrick Lancaster Explained

Patrick Lancaster
Birth Place:Missouri, United States
Nationality:American
Occupation:Vlogger
Channel Url:UCbjTWVaRx6jMN5ZYgbqe2_w
Channel Display Name:PatrickLancasterNewsToday
Years Active:2014–present
Genre:Vlogs Documentary
Subscribers:605,000
Subscriber Date:May 2024
Views:63 million
View Date:2024
Language:English and Russian
Associated Acts:Russo-Ukrainian War,Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Patrick Lancaster is an American vlogger, podcaster and influencer.[1] [2] Although described as pro-Kremlin, Lancaster has been called a double agent due to his videos covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine regularly revealing compromising Russian military information, which is used against Russia by Ukrainian forces, western intelligence agencies, and western media.[3] [4] [5] [6] Lancaster is known for regularly filming staged scenes and attempting to pass them off as real, and has been referred to as a fake master.[7] [8]

Biography

Early life and US Navy

Lancaster is originally from Missouri in the United States of America.[9] 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.[10]

Ukraine

According to Lancaster, he arrived in Ukraine in March 2014 to cover the aftermath of the Maidan revolution. He then settled in Donetsk later that year, after meeting the woman who would become his wife, converting to Orthodox Christianity. Lancaster has worked for several Kremlin-backed media outlets, including RT and Zvezda, covering the War in Donbas.[9] From 2014-15 in Donbas, Lancaster worked as a cameraman for British journalist Graham Phillips. Phillips would later be highly critical of Lancaster, writing in 2022 that Lancaster is an “illiterate, grifting charlatan, with a journalistic acumen and ability lower than a potted plant.”[1]

From 2015 on, Lancaster has mostly created videos for his own YouTube channel. Lancaster's videos have purportedly exposed information of Russian war crimes, revealing locations, identities of perpetrators, and sensitive Russian military information.[4] In his videos, Lancaster refers to the Donbas, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions under Russian occupation as being 'part of Ukraine'.[11] [12] [13]

Lancaster has often appeared on Alex Jones' InfoWars show. In 2022, research by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) identified Lancaster as one of the twelve key Western influencers spreading pro-Kremlin disinformation about the Russo-Ukrainian War.[14] Ukrainian media outlet Zaborona investigated his links to the Kremlin, reporting his connection to Eric Kraus, a pro-Putin French businessman who is close to Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council.[15]

MH17

Lancaster has created and published multiple videos connected to the tragedy of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and has received strong criticism for his actions in relation to MH17. In 2017 Lancaster claimed to have found skeletal remains of victims of the shoot-down of MH17 and pieces of the wreckage[16] which he, after a request from the Joint Investigation Team,[17] [18] turned over to the local mayor with the request to transport them to The Netherlands.[19] [20] [21] After investigation by the Netherlands Forensic Institute the remains were found to contain remnants of 7 passengers, 4 of whom were Dutch.[19] In 2018, relatives of the victims of the shoot-down expressed anger that Lancaster continued to show imagery of remains of the victims online. They believed he was using them in a campaign to acquit Russia from the shoot-down. In the Russian media the discovery of the remains by Lancaster was portrayed as evidence of the Dutch authorities having examined the crash site poorly and not caring for the relatives. In Ukrainian and Dutch media, Lancaster has been criticised for making propaganda out of the tragedy, insensitivity towards victims, and exploitation of the tragedy for personal gain.[22]

The Dutch authorities have repeatedly urged Lancaster to turn over all his findings, but as of 2024, he had yet to do so.[23] [24]

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Over the years, Lancaster has sporadically done videos on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict for his YouTube channel. Lancaster has been accused of producing fake news and staged videos on the conflict.[6] [8]

2022 to present

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. According to Bellingcat, the scene in at least one of Lancaster's videos was staged.[25] [26] An August 2022 investigation by Bellingcat found that one of Lancaster's YouTube videos showed the presence of, and helped identify, a Russian soldier suspected of torturing and castrating a Ukrainian prisoner of war.[27]

Lancaster's videos on the conflict have regularly been aired by Russian state owned media like Ruptly, Zvezda, and RT. Earlier in the conflict, his videos were featured on international media like the Associated Press, ITN, Skynews, Reuters, SPIEGEL TV. In 2022 Lancaster's sole 'international' outlet was conspiracy theory website InfoWars.[28]

Lancaster's videos from Ukraine gained considerable attention until July 2022, when Lancaster's output became sporadic. He then left Ukraine for an extended period, occasionally posting videos from Armenia. In October 2022, he returned to Ukraine, posting videos to his YouTube channel, and doing podcasts and interviews.[5] [2] In June of 2023, Lancaster did a video report from Rostov-on-Don, where he expressed his support for the Wagner Group rebellion against the Russian Government taking place at that time.[29] [30] [31] [32]

Lancaster continued blogging from Russia, and Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine in July, and August of 2023, before returning to Armenia in September for an extended period.[33] As of 2024, Lancaster is vlogging and podcasting from Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine.[2]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Gilbert . David . Meet the US 'Journalist' Helping Spread the Kremlin's Propaganda . . 30 November 2022 . en . 9 June 2022.
  2. Web site: PATRICK LANCASTER: Eye Witness of Ukraine Attack on Civilian Marketplace. 17 February 2024 . en . 23 January 2024.
  3. Web site: Tracking the Faceless Killers who Mutilated and Executed a Ukrainian POW . 25 November 2022.
  4. Web site: Russian troops living in stolen Ukrainian tents and using WW2-era sniper rifles . . 10 August 2023 . en . 11 June 2022.
  5. Web site: Paladino . Jason . van Wagtendonk . Anya . Meet Patrick Lancaster: A U.S. Navy veteran from Missouri and Russia's favorite war propagandist . Grid News . 14 July 2022 . en . 18 April 2022.
  6. Web site: Patrick Lancaster: Double agent, blogger living on donations, "fake master" . 30 September 2023 . 13 February 2024.
  7. Web site: 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 . 27 June 2022.
  8. Web site: Patrick Lancaster – freelance journalist, propagandist or ideologist? Analysis . 29 July 2022 . 17 February 2024.
  9. Martin Fornusek, Meet the foreign journalists promoting Russia’s war propaganda, 2022/09/01
  10. Web site: SCHOGOL . JEFF . How a former US Navy sailor . taskandpurpose.com . 19 April 2022 . . 15 July 2022.
  11. September 2022 . Patrick Lancaster – freelance journalist, propagandist or ideologist? Analysis. Patrick Lancaster . YouTube. 2023-08-04. https://web.archive.org/web/20230804103647/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA0WmCfZlDA. August 4, 2023.
  12. September 2022 . Referendum in Mariupol from the Inside. Patrick Lancaster . YouTube. 2023-08-04. https://web.archive.org/web/20230804103648/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE2J0leMgdU. August 4, 2023.
  13. September 2022 . Showing the Berdyansk and Zaporizhzhia referendums . Patrick Lancaster . YouTube. 2023-08-04. https://web.archive.org/web/20230804104334/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsOiF6x0FVk. August 4, 2023.
  14. News: Emma . Vardy . 2022-04-22 . Russian propaganda efforts aided by pro-Kremlin content creators, research finds . . 2023-01-17.
  15. Web site: Humeniuk . Oleksandr . 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 . Заборона . 27 June 2022 . 13 December 2022.
  16. Web site: Opnieuw mogelijk menselijke resten MH17 gevonden. BN DeStem. 2022-07-14. 2017-10-05. Annick van der Peet.
  17. Web site: Mogelijk opnieuw menselijke resten MH17-ramp gevonden. 2017-07-21. RTL Nieuws. 2022-07-15.
  18. Web site: 'Weer menselijke resten MH17-ramp gevonden'. 2017-07-21. Metro. 2022-07-15.
  19. Web site: Menselijke resten MH17-slachtoffers geïdentificeerd. BN DeStem. 2022-07-14. Bonne Kerstens. 2017-11-14.
  20. Web site: Gevonden botresten zijn van slachtoffers MH-17. Leeuwarder Courant. 2022-07-14. 2017-11-14.
  21. Web site: Gevonden botresten zijn van slachtoffers MH-17. Dagblad van het Noorden. 2022-07-14. 2017-11-14.
  22. News: Mogelijk weer menselijke resten MH17-ramp naar Nederland. NRC. 2022-07-14. 2017-07-21. Wilmer Heck.
  23. Web site: Appel op journalist om stoffelijke resten MH17. Reformatorisch Dagblad. 2022-07-15. 2018-09-10.
  24. Web site: Schriftelijke vragen Stieneke van der Graaf e.a. over de verklaring (nr. 2) van het bestuur van de Stichting Vliegramp MH17 inzake meldingen en publiciteit over lichamelijke resten op MH17-crashsite - ChristenUnie.nl . ChristenUnie. 2022-07-15. 2018-07-23.
  25. Web site: Zadrozny . Brandy . Brandy Zadrozny . Russian propaganda efforts aided by pro-Kremlin content creators, research finds . . 14 July 2022 . en . 8 June 2022.
  26. Web site: Waters . Nick . 'Exploiting Cadavers 'and 'Faked IEDs': Experts Debunk Staged Pre-War 'Provocation' in the Donbas . . 14 July 2022 . 28 February 2022.
  27. Web site: Tracking the Faceless Killers who Mutilated and Executed a Ukrainian POW . 5 August 2022.
  28. Web site: Deze tv-beelden krijgen Russen van de oorlog: 'Wij laten zien wat Westen niet durft'. 2022-05-10. De Telegraaf. 2022-07-14. Mischa van Diepen.
  29. Web site: Патрик Ланкастер: . С "Вагнером" и Пригожиным уезжают из Ростова (Эксклюзивное интервью) Спецрепортаж . Patrick Lancaster: Leaving Rostov with Wagner and Prigozhin (Exclusive interview) Special Feature . 1 July 2023 . ru . 25 June 2022.
  30. Web site: "Нормальный результат». Пригожин оценил итоги мятежа ЧВК «Вагнер" . "Normal result". Prigozhin summed up the result of the Wagner mutiny . 1 July 2023 . ru . 25 June 2022.
  31. 2023-06-25 . With Wagner "Coup" Leaving Russia (Exclusive Prigozhin) Special Report . Patrick Lancaster . YouTube. 2023-07-01.
  32. Web site: Пригожин о результатах мятежа: «Нормально, всех взбодрили» . Prigozhin about the mutiny result: "Normal result, everyone was cheered up" . 1 July 2023 . ru . 25 June 2022.
  33. Web site: Armenian extremist militants have been brainwashed . 26 September 2023 . 26 September 2023.