The gaffe affected the NYT's video account, @nytvideo, which tweeted out the hoax on Sunday at around 9:40am ET, citing a "leaked statement" from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Though the alarming tweet was quickly deleted, others followed that were claimed by the hacker group OurMine, which has previously taken responsibility for hijacking a number of high-profile accounts on social media.
OurMine said it had "re-hacked" the account in order to stem the spread of misinformation after noticing that it had been broken into by a third party. Their messages were eventually deleted too.
The newspaper later confirmed that it had deleted a number of tweets published by @nytvideo "without authorization," saying it was investigating the situation without elaborating.
Comment: When all you publish is fake news it's hard to spot the difference between 'hackers' and run-of-the-mill propaganda.