At age 22, Lanskoy had requested his transfer to a provincial garrison since he "lacked sufficient funds to keep pace with his brother officers" and doing so would entail lower expenses. However, "[h]is application was rejected at the College of War by [Grigory] Potemkin himself, who then, surprisingly, appointed the young man his personal aide-de-camp." James Harris, the British ambassador, claims Potemkin had another candidate, yet Potemkin supported the choice of Lanskoy. It was Potemkin, who benefitted from Catherine's stable relationship with Lanskoy by having more time to annex Crimea and build the Black Sea Fleet, who introduced Lanskoy to Catherine on Easter 1780, six months after her latest favourite, Ivan Rimsky-Korsakov, had left with Princess Anna Trubetskaya. However, Massie states that Lanskoy was officially installed in the favourite apartments "[i]n November 1779".