Transcript of Patrick Lancaster on The Tucker Carlson Show

So it’s really great, and I appreciate the invitation.

I have been covering this conflict, this war, for a lot longer than many people understand that it’s going on. As you know, this didn’t start three years ago. It started in 2014, some say even before. But for all intents and purposes, we could say 2014, when the war started, following the events in Crimea, where Crimea joins or rejoins Russia, because there was a referendum.

I was there where I first started reporting on the situation between Russia and Ukraine. I went to Crimea for the referendum where the Crimean people voted to break away from Ukraine and join Russia, rejoin Russia, because before 1956, Crimea was part of Russia. So, I mean, if you think about this, the people that were born before that year were born in Russia. So there’s people living that were born in Russia that were literally so happy to be joining Russia again, going home, as the people on the streets told me when I was there. And I’ve been there almost every year reporting since then as well.

That’s what really triggered my interest and intensity in reporting on the situation between Ukraine and Russia, because when I went from Europe to Crimea and saw the huge difference of what was being reported in the Western mainstream media about the real situation in Crimea. We’re hearing in the west how Russian forces were going to be making people vote to break away from Ukraine and join Russia. And I saw just the total opposite, people just crying out of happiness to have the chance to rejoin Russia. And those are the real facts. And anyone that has been to Crimea knows that.

The Eight-Year Civil War

And unfortunately, after the events in Crimea, the northern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk ended up becoming part of what you could say a civil war, where they as well had a referendum to break away from Ukraine. And that preceded the eight-year war. Eight-year civil war where after the vote, the republics that they called themselves Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics started to make their own governments, make their own militaries, and they were attacked after this referendum by Ukraine.

I spent eight years covering the situation in the Donetsk and Lugansk areas, just documenting my part of the puzzle or the pie that wasn’t being shown in the Western mainstream media because what I was showing then and now, what Western mainstream media doesn’t, it’s not convenient for them to show, doesn’t fit their narrative.

So I documented what they weren’t. The indiscriminate shelling of residential areas by Ukraine, the targeting of civilian areas by Ukraine. I mean, my wife is from Donetsk and her childhood home was destroyed by Ukrainian shelling as well as the majority of her childhood neighborhood.

So these are the facts of the things that happened in the Donetsk and Lugansk territories long before 2022, when Russia came into this war. From 2014 till 2022 is when this civil war took place. And of course, Ukraine and the west claimed Russia had invaded all the way back in 2014. That was the narrative then. But eventually that kind of slowly went away when they realized that this eight-year war wasn’t really. There was no regular Russian troops taking part in that. This was a civil war that was lightly supported by the West, Ukraine supported by the West.

TUCKER CARLSON: Wait, may I ask a question to clarify something? So you said that your wife’s childhood home was destroyed by shelling from the Ukrainian government. Why were they shelling your wife’s house? Like what did, was she, was her family part of the fighting? Why would they do that?

Civilian Casualties in Donetsk

PATRICK LANCASTER: Well, they pretty much leveled most of her childhood home or childhood neighborhood where her mother’s home was. This neighborhood is just one of the many around Donetsk, in the suburbs of Donetsk and specifically around the Donetsk airport.

The Donetsk airport was like a symbol of the war back in 2014, 2015, where there was literally so much fighting. There were two terminals. One terminal had the Ukrainian forces in it. One had the anti-Ukraine government forces or rebels or pro-Russian forces, whatever you want to call them, the locals that took up arms to fight to try to break away from Ukraine.

And they were fighting and basically Ukraine leveled, not completely level, but damaged, if not destroyed the majority of the homes all around this area, around the airport, just with indiscriminate shelling. And of the areas, the neighborhoods, just destroying or seriously damaging almost every home. And it just so happened my wife’s childhood home was one of those.

Thank God her family and her made it out okay. They were living there when the war started and they made it out okay, but the house was destroyed. And this is just one example of many homes and families that lost everything in the war.

TUCKER CARLSON: You know, I don’t remember hearing in the United States at the time that there was a war in Ukraine. I mean, my sense is this was basically ignored completely and that Ukraine at that time was effectively under the control of the Obama administration. That was my sense.

The Maidan Revolution and Its Aftermath

PATRICK LANCASTER: Yeah, a lot of people don’t really, didn’t really understand what was really happening on the ground. But basically, I mean, it goes back to the Maidan revolution or whatever you want to call it. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.

The locals in the eastern part of Ukraine at that point looked at the Maidan revolution as an illegal coup supported by the west where ended up with their democratically elected President Yanukovych removed from office without them having anything to say about it. And which effect made their Ukraine dead and not in existence anymore after a puppet government was put in by the United States in the west.

So the people of the Donetsk and Lugansk areas just, they said, okay, well that’s not our Ukraine. Ukraine’s gone. Some of them were patriots for Ukraine before. They just said, okay, we don’t have anything to do with that. We’re going to have a vote, we’re going to vote ourselves what to do, the right of self-determination.

And Ukraine in the west did not want to respect the right of determination. And Ukraine basically, in the words of the locals, punished them for them trying to break away from Ukraine. And every local family knew someone or had a member of their family injured or killed in the attacks by Ukrainian forces on the civilian areas of these regions, specifically the cities of Donetsk and Lugansk.

TUCKER CARLSON: So you’ve been there rotating in and out or living there ever since all these years. How did things change three years ago when the war began?

The Realities of the Ukraine-Russia War

PATRICK LANCASTER: Well, it was quite an interesting time, as you can imagine. Just a couple of days before it all started, Russia officially recognized the Lugansk and Donetsk republics as separate from Ukraine. The people had celebrations on the streets, celebrating the fact that Russia recognized them and they knew that meant Russia was going to be helping these republics. Days later, Russia came across the border and the war between Ukraine and Russia started. You know, one way or another, the war between Russia and the West has started—Western weapons at least.

Many people around the world thought it was going to go a lot quicker than it has. I myself did a report in the center of Donetsk where I assumed Russia was going to be pushing Ukraine back within days from the city. Because you have to imagine the front line of Donetsk was just on the outskirts of the city. We’re talking from the center of the city to the edge, just about to the front line, just about five miles with often straight shelling hitting the center of the city.

As we know, it didn’t end in three days like General Miley said it would, and there have been a lot of intense battles around these areas. In fact, right now I believe there are eight regions between what is internationally recognized as Ukraine or what Russia recognizes as Russia that have active fighting.

Some are Russian, some are pre-war Russian, after-war Russia, whatever you want to call it. We’ve got the Zaporizhzhia region, Kherson region, Donetsk region, and Lugansk region, which all four of those had referendums in 2022 September where they voted to join Russia in Russian-backed referendums unrecognized by the West. Shortly after, Russia took them in officially.

In addition to those four regions, you have two regions of Russia—the Belgorod region and the Kursk region—where Ukraine came across the border and invaded pre-2022 Russia. In the area of Kursk, they controlled about 1,500 square kilometers last August. Since then, it’s been really reduced by Russian forces.

In addition to those six territories, we’ve also got the Sumy region of Ukraine where there are some villages and territory that Russia controls with very intense fighting going on there. That borders the Kursk region. Basically, Russia went past the territory that was controlled by Ukraine in the Kursk region of Russia and took territory in the Sumy region. Also in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine, Russia controls some territory as well with intense fighting going on there.

The Drone War

So we’ve got eight regions with intense fighting, and the war keeps changing. So much has changed of course in the last 11 years as far as how the fighting has evolved. Even since 2022 when Russia first came in, the situation now is the air war, the drone war. It’s like the war of the future now compared to what it used to be 11 years ago.

The most dangerous part of my job is actually getting to the front line to film what’s happening there. In the vehicles getting there, there are always drones around. These are kamikaze drones that are the main threat. Of course, there’s reconnaissance drones as well, but these kamikazes hunt vehicles around the front line and will just hit the vehicle and explode.

Now they’ve even gone a step forward where jamming or electronic warfare doesn’t affect them because they use fiber optic cables to control these drones, where this little cable goes from behind the drone to the remote control. They’re cabled drones and they could go up to 30 kilometers. This right here is some of the fiber optic cable that is used to control these drones. Those are the most deadly on the front line because you can’t do anything about it. You can’t even detect them with a drone detector.

TUCKER CARLSON: So what is that like? Have you seen the kamikaze drones hit and explode?

Close Encounter with a Kamikaze Drone

PATRICK LANCASTER: Well, just over three weeks ago, I was in the Kursk region of Russia trying to get back from the front line. I was with a team from the Russian forces Akmat brigade, and they were evacuating civilians from the front line. We actually got to what they called “the point of zero,” which was the edge of the village where the Ukrainian forces were.

As we got there, there were several overhead and they engaged one on the ground and it came down. They loaded the civilians in this truck. In the cab of the truck were these four elderly civilians and the soldier who was driving. Myself and another journalist, a colleague of mine, were in the back of the truck with two soldiers as we were trying to evacuate this village.

As we got just outside the village, I happened to be filming one of the soldiers as they were scanning the skies. The other soldier actually pointed up and said “a drone” and a few other curse words. I looked up and there was a kamikaze drone. Right away I knew what it was and I knew the danger we were in.

The soldiers started firing on it, engaging it, trying to knock it down as it was trying to attack us. They signaled to the driver, who just floored it, driving as fast as possible while I’m filming them shooting at the drone. The drone was trying to hit us. I thought that we were going to be injured at best because it got so close to us as we were driving. After about what felt like five minutes of it chasing us—might have been a few minutes less—it was knocked down.

TUCKER CARLSON: And how do you knock down a drone? How do you knock down a suicide drone over you?

PATRICK LANCASTER: They were engaging it with a shotgun and machine guns. It was coming at us and in the video it’s a little bit unclear if their bullets actually hit it or it hit a wire that was going over the road. But for about three to five minutes, they were firing at it with a shotgun and a machine gun.

The shotgun is the new weapon of choice on the front line because it’s got the buckshot and it spreads. These—the idea is there’s more room to hit, just like you’re shooting at a bird. That’s actually what they call these drones: birds. So they go hunting with this shotgun for these drones. Luckily, thank God, God was with us that day and it did not hit its target. So we made it to report another day.

TUCKER CARLSON: [Advertisement removed]

So one of the most confusing questions in the West is the most obvious question, which is who’s winning? And even now we’re told that Ukraine has a shot to win. Lindsey Graham has been saying this even recently, if only US taxpayers would send Zelensky’s government more money. What’s your perspective as someone who’s covering the war from the front lines?

The Reality of Who’s Winning

PATRICK LANCASTER: Well, I think the idea of Ukraine winning the war is just this dream and narrative that’s been put out by the West to make it acceptable for so much money to be put into Ukraine to extend this war, to bring Russian forces down in the country of Russia just to make them use their resources more, including losing more people.

If the United States and the West would not have been supplying the weapons and the funding to Ukraine for the last three years, the war would have ended three years ago, if not two and a half years ago, and hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved. The funding and the support of the West for Ukraine is directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of these deaths of soldiers on both sides and civilians for that matter.

TUCKER CARLSON: How many have died? The other question that we can never get a straight answer to or any answer to is how many have died on both sides? Do you have any guess?

Eyewitness Accounts from the Frontlines

PATRICK LANCASTER: You know, it’s hard for me to say. My approach in my reports is reporting on what I see, keeping my opinions out of it. So what I can tell you is what I’ve seen. One of the hottest areas that I was in before Kursk and Belgrade, where I am now, was the Mariupol front line where I followed the Russian front line day by day in the heights of the battle of Mariupol.

During that month I personally saw between a thousand and two thousand bodies – soldiers, civilians – the whole city was just covered in bodies. In a matter of a 30-minute period one time, I counted 87 bodies just lying in the street. It was really a horrible situation.

I witnessed so many war crimes and heard many testimonies from locals about Ukrainian forces. These are not my words, but the words of the locals – everything I say can be seen on my YouTube channel. These locals say that Ukrainian forces literally used them as human shields, would set up their tanks in between apartment buildings and fire at Russian forces. In other cases, they would directly fire on civilian buildings. This is what the locals told me on camera – not just one-off incidents but constant daily events.

Ukrainian Military Using Civilian Infrastructure

Unfortunately, there were many instances of Ukrainian forces using schools as bases. One of my first days in Mariupol, I found School Number 25 of Mariupol – I’ll never forget it. I went into the basement and found that Ukrainian forces were using this basement as a military position. There were many burned-out rooms and weapons, uniforms, Ukrainian flags.

Unfortunately, we found a dead civilian woman who was naked and had a bag over her head. She was clearly raped and tortured, and it was clearly a civilian from the area that Ukrainian forces had kidnapped. They carved or burned a swastika on her stomach.

This was the first time that the psychological effect of these instances really stood out to me. In my mind, I still remember seeing what looked like a bandage over her head, but if you look at the video, you see it was a plastic bag that was used to execute her.

That’s just one of many examples of executions by Ukrainian forces that I’ve seen.

Recent Atrocities in Kursk Region

The most recent were in the Kursk region just this last January where I was with Russian regular army forces. They had just days before gotten to this village and basically kicked Ukrainian forces out. The village was destroyed.

There was a shelter, a basement basically, that we went down into and found a group of civilians – two elderly women and one elderly man that had been killed by Ukrainian forces. As we walked down the steps, the smell was so bad we had to put gas masks on. At the bottom of the steps, we couldn’t really say how many people were there because it was clear that some sort of explosive, I assume a grenade, was thrown down in the shelter where these people were hiding. The people near the door, along with a dog, were just turned into soup basically.

As we went farther back into the shelter, we found the two elderly women killed by the explosion and an elderly man.

Civilian Casualties During Evacuation

Back in August, when Ukraine first came into Kursk, I met a man who explained how he was trying to evacuate his family from the Suzha region, which was basically the stronghold of Ukrainian forces when they entered the Kursk region of Russia.

He explained how he was evacuating his pregnant wife, their one-year-old son, and his wife’s mother. They had two vehicles and were surprised that war broke out in their village because they weren’t part of the war zone before August.

He decided to drive in the front car and have his family in the back with his wife driving behind, just in case something happened, it would hit him first and they might get away. They were driving, came around a turn, and came face to face with a Ukrainian or pro-Ukrainian soldier, just two meters away from him.

He said there was no way that the soldier did not see that they were civilians. There was no question they were civilians. And the soldier opened fire. The bullet went through the bill of his cap and a few into his vehicle. They kept driving as they were being fired at and got some distance away.

These are his words, not mine – he saw that his wife’s vehicle was slowing down, and he waited for her to speed up. When her car hit the back of his car, he knew something was wrong. He went back to check on his family in the other car, and his pregnant wife was huddled over their one-year-old son with bullet holes in the side of her stomach.

He picked her up, took her to the nearest hospital they could find, but they weren’t able to save her. He tried to do CPR, in his words, “massage her heart back to life.” Their one-year-old son was injured but thank God he lived. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to recover her body for many months afterward.

Current Situation in Kursk Region

Things have changed considerably in the Kursk region. It started in August with Ukraine surprising many by coming across and taking 1,500 square kilometers. Right after that, Russia started taking some back, and I was with them. I went with the assault groups to the Ukrainian lines as they took territory back.

Russia continued reclaiming these villages, though the recovery slowed down until last month when Russian forces literally went into gas pipes and tunneled underneath Ukrainian lines. They reported 600 Russian soldiers came up behind Ukrainian lines. That operation, combined with an assault from the other side, basically collapsed Ukrainian lines. Now there’s just a very small amount of Ukrainian forces left in the Kursk region.

Just yesterday, there was a report from the Russian Ministry of Defense that some territory had been taken back by Russian forces.

Humanitarian Response

Unfortunately, this is leaving tens of thousands of people homeless, as homes were destroyed in this incursion or invasion by Ukrainian forces into this region of Russia. The standard response from the Russian government is to give certificates for new homes to the victims. They’ve actually gotten pretty good at it because there are so many regions where people have lost their homes to Ukrainian shelling.

One interesting thing about what they’re doing in the Kursk region: on top of the certificate, the governor of Kursk, Alexander Kinsting, started an initiative to request from Moscow a special stipend or monthly payment of 65,000 rubles for every member of a family whose home was lost. That’s about $750, so if it’s a family of four, that’s about $3,000 a month. Of course, that’s not going to replace everything in their lives that they’ve lost, but it’s a lot more than what the United States gives to natural disaster victims – I think around $700 lump sum payments.

TUCKER CARLSON: So let me ask you from our perspective over here, the Ukrainian government is not just at war with Russia, but also with Christianity. The Ukrainian government has banned the largest Christian denomination in Ukraine and has embraced transgenderism and other explicitly anti-Christian forms of expression. Are you aware of that? Are the Russians aware of that? Is there a religious component just because their hostility to Christianity is so obvious, I wonder if you notice it.

Religious Dimension of the Conflict

PATRICK LANCASTER: Well, I always ask the soldiers on the front line who I document fighting why they’re there, why they’re fighting, what they’re fighting for. Often an answer they give is they’re fighting Satan because they view the religious atmosphere so different, as you point out, in Ukraine than in traditional Russian society.

Religion is very important to the Russian soldier. And of course, I think it’s quite a bit more than the traditional saying that “there are no atheists on the front line” – this goes a lot deeper into their cultural heritage.

TUCKER CARLSON: Have you seen any North Korean soldiers?

PATRICK LANCASTER: No, I have not. Not for lack of trying. I tried to investigate the reports of these North Korean soldiers and I was not able to locate any of them. Of course, there are rumors all over the world of this, but I was not able to locate any of them.

TUCKER CARLSON: How many American correspondents are embedded with Russian units that you know of?

PATRICK LANCASTER: One. Me.

TUCKER CARLSON: So no one from NBC or CNN or Fox or PBS or New York Times, Washington Post? You’re not aware of any American correspondents covering the other side in this war?

PATRICK LANCASTER: No. No.

Media Coverage Bias

TUCKER CARLSON: So does it feel to you that American reporters have basically taken the side of the Biden administration which told us that Russia is our enemy and are uncritically repeating US Government talking points?

PATRICK LANCASTER: Yeah, I mean, of course the Western media has their narrative and unfortunately they try to hide the facts that most of what I report on. I tell all my viewers don’t just watch my reports because I don’t have all the answers. But I’m showing you what the mainstream media doesn’t want you to see. I’m just giving you my piece of the puzzle, something that you’re not going to see anywhere else, unfortunately.

People need to get as many perspectives as possible and educate themselves, not just be led like sheep by the mainstream media. And I’m very glad there are people like you out there as well that could give someone a little bit something to think about other than just the narrative that is trying to be forced down their throat.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I mean, if you’re the only American correspondent embedded with Russian units, then I would think you would be in high demand. I’m embarrassed. It’s taken me over three years to talk to you. That’s my fault. But, I mean, I assume you’re getting calls every week from American news organizations trying to understand what’s happening.

Patrick Lancaster’s Independent Journalism

PATRICK LANCASTER: Unfortunately, no. They don’t seem too interested in discussing things with me or seeing the information that I’m putting out. In fact, in 2014, 15 and 16, I was what I would say is a freelance journalist, videographer as well. Until I felt like my work was being betrayed because I was giving this material and then once I saw that the material was being lied about.

One instance, I was in the Lugansk region in Pervomaisk, when Ukraine forces launched a rocket attack on this soup kitchen. We happened to be there, and I filmed the aftermath and the women saying how Poroshenko was killing them and their families. Just really horrible targeting of civilians by Ukrainian forces with huge rockets. I sold that material as a freelance journalist to Western outlets, and they turned it around and said that it was Lugansk rebels that fired on the soup kitchen. Just totally lying about the situation.

After that, I decided I’m not going to do that anymore. Regardless if I get paid for it or not, I’m going to be showing exactly what I see. That’s what I’ve been doing since then, just on my YouTube channel, showing my reports. I’m only supported by my viewers. Of course I’ll do collaborations with other channels and things if they’re interested. But I make it a point not to get paid by anyone but the donations from my viewers. So the only people that I report to, that I need to show what’s really happening, is my viewers. I don’t have any editor or boss that says, “Oh, we need to show this or show this.” No, I show in my reports on YouTube and my Substack blog exactly what’s happening, exactly what I see. With no narrative, just the facts that the western mainstream media isn’t showing.

TUCKER CARLSON: Since you’ve been there all these years and have a tactile sense of what’s happening, give us a couple examples of stories Americans may have seen or read in our media here that you know firsthand are wrong.

Misreported Events in Western Media

PATRICK LANCASTER: Well, off the top of my head, the missile attack, Tochka U attack by Ukrainian forces on the center of Donetsk in 2022 when Ukraine launched a cluster bomb attack on the center of Donetsk. The cluster bombs came down about 200 yards from my apartment where my family, kids, wife, and my dad were. We thought we were getting hit. We threw the bulletproof vests on the kids and threw one of the others under the bed. It was not good.

In the Western mainstream media, they said that it was a Russian attack, which is just idiotic. Why would Russia attack Donetsk that hasn’t been under Ukrainian control for the last eight years? Just total grabbing of false information to try to portray a narrative that just is not true.

That was the last day that my family was in Donetsk with me. I had to evacuate them as I stayed to show what was happening on the front line. My wife didn’t want to leave because she’s from Donetsk. But I said after that attack so close to us, I had to evacuate them. After that I just went solo and went back to my family when I could. And that’s what I do even today.

TUCKER CARLSON: Where are you from in the United States?

PATRICK LANCASTER: I’m from St. Louis, Missouri.

TUCKER CARLSON: Have you been back to the US during the last three years?

PATRICK LANCASTER: In the last three years? No, I have not.

TUCKER CARLSON: How is YouTube treating you?

PATRICK LANCASTER: Well, I haven’t been monetized on YouTube basically at all. I started my YouTube channel in 2014 and there’s no monetization whatsoever.

TUCKER CARLSON: Why, on what grounds were you demonetized?

PATRICK LANCASTER: You know, it’s been literally over a decade ago, but I believe just the fact of war and they’re just not interested in putting commercials on my material. I guess because it doesn’t fit the Western mainstream narrative. It’s great that I’m still able to use the platform to show the world some of the things that’s happening, but unfortunately it’s not monetized.

So I’m only supported by my viewers through donations. But what I do, it’s not really because of the money. Of course I’ve got to support my family. But after I saw how different what was being shown in the west from what was happening, I just had to do something about it. If you would ask me before 12 years ago, would I be a war correspondent going to the front lines showing the reality of what’s happening and I’d be the only one doing it, it would be amazing to me.

The Psychological Impact of War Reporting

TUCKER CARLSON: Given the atrocities you’ve seen, some incredibly ugly things, I wonder what effect that has on you as a person to see things like that.

PATRICK LANCASTER: Well, I would say before this war I had mixed thoughts about what post-traumatic stress really was and how serious it was. But I could tell you now there’s no doubt that it’s definitely a thing.

This is quite different than when I was in the US military. I used to be in the US Navy from 2001 till 2006. I was on the USS Kitty Hawk that was involved with Operation Iraqi Freedom. Never saw anything like that there like I see here of course.

I always find it interesting how the US calls all of their operations “operations” but when Russia says that it’s not a war, it’s a special military operation, the western media makes this big thing about it. How it’s illegal to call it a war in Russia and all that which is total nonsense. A war is a war. Operation Iraqi Freedom was a war. And Russia’s special military operation is a war. And the eight years before it was a civil war. A war is a war regardless what you want to call it.

I’m in Russia now calling it a war. Nothing’s going to happen because of it. So that’s just another false narrative that the Western media pushed of trying to say no freedom of speech in Russia. Just total falsehood.

Personal Safety Concerns

TUCKER CARLSON: Did you know Gonzalo Lira who was maybe the only other American who was looking critically at what the Ukrainian government is doing? He was murdered by the Ukrainian government as you know. Did you ever run across him and are you worried that if you fell into Ukrainian hands they would murder you too?

PATRICK LANCASTER: We talked online a couple of times. He was definitely ballsy. For him to go against the Ukrainian government while he was there, unfortunately didn’t work so well for him.

Of course if I ever ended up in Ukrainian forces’ hands, it would not be a very nice time. I’ve been on the Ukrainian kill list or enemies of the state list, which I believe you are as well. I’ve been on that list since 2016. The non-governmental list that they put names of people that are an enemy of Ukraine, and they write because of my work that I’m an assistant to terrorism. They’ve posted photos of my children, my wife, they’ve even posted her personal telephone number. She had to change her number because of it. So yeah, it would not be a good thing if I ended up in the hands of Ukrainian forces.

TUCKER CARLSON: The Ukrainian war effort has been led by the United States, which is a fact most Americans, I think even now don’t understand. Do you have any idea how many Americans have been killed fighting for Ukraine?

PATRICK LANCASTER: Well, we know it happens. I would say there’s probably a lot more that have been killed for Ukraine than is public knowledge. You can imagine that there are probably some internal operations on the front line that involved Western special forces and not all of them made it out.

I’ve talked to Russian soldiers on the front line about foreign mercenaries or foreign soldiers and they said they encounter them all the time from European countries, from US and more. I actually made a video last month about how Russia’s not really playing around anymore when it comes to foreign fighters. They consider all the foreign fighters to be foreign mercenaries. Vladimir Putin says that these foreign mercenaries do not get the protection of the Geneva Convention and there’s a possibility of execution.

So it really seems like now that there’s only two outcomes for these foreigners that come over here to fight. If they come into Russian hands, it’s jail or death. In the beginning of March there was a British soldier who was taken prisoner by Russian forces in the Kursk region. He went through his trial and was convicted and received a 19-year sentence. So it seems Russia’s going pretty strong on the foreigners here.

TUCKER CARLSON: How long do you think this war will go on?

The Future of the Ukraine-Russia Conflict

PATRICK LANCASTER: It’s a very difficult question. Back in 2022, I tried to make predictions like many people around the world did, and everyone was wrong. I mean, of course the most important thing is people stop dying. And it would be great if today there was a ceasefire declared and everyone stopped dying and everything went back to peace and all that. But I don’t think it’s going to be happening anytime soon, unfortunately, because Russia has made it clear that Russian law considers the four regions Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk, Lugansk, part of Russia, Western law, and of course Crimea. But even now Trump says he’s going to say Crimea is Russia. So that’s not even worth discussing anymore.

Ukraine law and Western law says that these four regions are part of Ukraine. Russia cannot stop until they control what is legally by Russian law considered part of Russia, regardless what side of this conflict you favor looking at Russian law. Russian law cannot stop the war until they control part of all of what Russian law considers part of Russia. And I’ve been saying this for years, it was one thing before September of 2022 when Russia could have stopped and had a quick peace deal. But after September of 2022, these four regions were legally as far as Russian law considers part of Russia. And Russia cannot stop until it controls this and Zelensky, Ukraine and the west has made it clear that Ukrainian forces are not just going to stand up and leave these regions.

Now, if we look at Lugansk, there’s 99% of the area of Lugansk that’s controlled by Russia. But if you go south to the Donetsk region, there’s less controlled by Russia with several important key places like Kramatorsk and Slaviansk, which actually control the water supply to Donetsk. And then of course, in Kherson, you’ve got the city of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia. The city of Zaporizhzhia, which are cut geographically by a river, is basically the front line now.

Water as a Weapon

And I mentioned the water supply for Donetsk. Basically after Russia took control of Mariupol in 2022, the first thing Ukraine did was cut the water from the Kramatorsk area going into Donetsk and down to Mariupol. The reason they didn’t cut the water to Donetsk in the previous eight years like they did with Crimea, because that was the first thing they did with Crimea. When Russia took Crimea, they cut the water supply from Ukraine, literally dammed the canal that was feeding water to the people of Crimea. And the water supply was going underneath Donetsk into Mariupol. And Mariupol had to be fed by water when Ukraine controlled Mariupol.

But once Russia fully took control, Ukraine shut off the water to Donetsk and Mariupol. And for a long time in Donetsk, you were only getting two hours every three days of water. I mean, just horrible living conditions because Ukraine made the decision to shut off the water to these people, the people that they said they wanted, they were trying to stop from leaving the country for eight years. And Russia made a huge project to bring water from the Rostov region into the Donetsk region. And it’s still ongoing. And now there’s a couple hours a day of water in Donetsk.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s horrifying. Have you seen any reports of the Ukrainian military selling NATO arms outside of Ukraine?

NATO Weapons and Reverse Engineering

PATRICK LANCASTER: You know, there has been some reports of Western supplied weapons showing up in the cartel hands in Mexico and other places. But what I can tell you, I have seen with my own eyes is Russian forces using these weapons back against Ukraine. Weapons that Ukraine got from NATO countries and Russia captured them and turned them back against Ukraine. And Russia is in the process of reverse engineering.

I just did a report where I went with a soldier group to an undisclosed location where they had about 20 military vehicles, NATO military vehicles that were on their way to be getting reverse engineered and basically any type of secret information they could get out of them. And that report will be coming out soon. But I would say Russia’s getting a lot out of these NATO weapons.

TUCKER CARLSON: Last question. Thank you, Patrick, for taking all this time. Do you think the US population, Americans would have supported this war, which they’ve paid for for over three years, as long as they did, if they’d had factual, unbiased news coverage of what was actually happening there?

Media Coverage and Public Support

PATRICK LANCASTER: No, definitely not. And one reason is to go back to one of your previous questions about what’s not being reported in the west that I could bring to light. Well, let’s talk about the people of these areas, specifically the Donetsk and Lugansk areas for the last 11 years, just wanting to break away from Ukraine and the right of self determination.

And they didn’t say this in the media, that these people were not being held down by these rebels or whatever you want to call them. These people were doing their best to leave Ukraine and Ukraine was punishing them for that. They voted to break away from Ukraine. So definitely if the Western people would really understand what’s really been happening here over the last 11 years, not just the last three years, but the overall situation, there’s no way they would have wanted their tax money to be supporting this and killing hundreds of thousands of people.

TUCKER CARLSON: I believe that. Patrick Lancaster, thank you for doing this interview. I hope you’re safe. I appreciate it. I hope you’ll come back.

PATRICK LANCASTER: Thank you very much, Tucker Carlson, I appreciate you having me and I definitely am looking forward to the next time and hopefully one day we meet in person.

TUCKER CARLSON: Godspeed. Thanks.

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