Caolan Robertson
Irish journalist and influencer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Caolan Robertson (pronounced "Kay-lan", born ~1996) is an Irish-born journalist and influencer. He is a co-founder of Future Freedom[1] and was a director at BylineTV as of 2021.[2] He has been reporting from Ukraine since 2022,[3] and as of mid-November 2025 describes himself as a full-time journalist based in Ukraine with dozens of videos on YouTube.[4] He has reportedly won 12 awards for his documentaries.[3]
Early life
Far right politics
According to Robertson, he was involved with far-right politics for "around three years", having been drawn into it by conservative Muslim anti-gay sentiment he encountered in London and the targeting of the gay community in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting. 49 people were killed in the attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida by a shooter who had sworn allegiance to the "caliph" of the Islamic State. Searching the internet for information about the shooting, Robertson found results from far-right news sources and activists. "As soon as you watch a few of them, you get recommended many, many more and I really started going down an online-specific rabbit hole."[2]
He graduated from being an online supporter to making videos for right-wing activists like Tommy Robinson, Lauren Southern and Alex Jones,[2] and being a correspondent for the far-right Rebel Media.[6] He explains his popularity with the movement in part by his having a clean record. "Normally people that make content like this have a dark history or have been involved in violence, whereas I had none of that".[6]
By early 2019, Robertson said he had grown disillusioned with working with the far-right,[7] and in an interview, portrayed himself as having abandoned the ideology.[8] The Christchurch mosque shootings by a white supremacist in March was "the final straw".[6]
He says he spent 2019 to 2020 mentally recovering from leaving what he described as "a cult", and as of 2021 claimed he was "exposing the far-right, exposing disinformation",[2] including how misleading extremist videos can attract millions of views.[5]
Ukraine
During an interview with The Bulwark, Robertson said that when the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine began, he visited the country and made a documentary about the war. He was so affected by the experience that upon returning to the UK, he found he "couldn't go back to doing what he had been doing". He moved to Ukraine in mid-2024, where he lives and works full-time.[9]
As a result of his work in Ukraine and his entry into Ukrainian-occupied Russian territory (Sudzha), the Russian government has sanctioned him and issued an international warrant for his arrest.[9]
Filmography
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Farmlands | Producer |
| 2019 | You can't watch this | Producer |
| 2019 | Borderless | Co-producer |
| 2023 | Under Deadly Skies: Ukraine's Eastern Front | Producer |
| 2024 | Hunted in Kherson | Director |
| 2024 | The Battle for Kyiv | Producer |