In early June 2025, a Facebook account posted a story (archived) allegedly written by "Curtis Llama" of The New York Times. The story claimed the had reviewed "internal Pentagon documents" that showed U.S. President Donald Trump had ordered the kidnapping of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Users shared the story more than 1,500 times, as of this writing.
The story — which spread to other Facebook accounts (archived) and Instagram (archived) — began:
WASHINGTON — In an extraordinary breach of national and international norms, internal Pentagon documents viewed by The New York Times—made available through an unprecedented network of whistleblowers—reveal that senior U.S. defense officials, under direct orders from President Donald J. Trump, coordinated with the Russian Ministry of Defence to plan and execute a covert operation aimed at capturing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The story then went on to detail the alleged collaboration between the U.S. and Russia, calling it a "state-sponsored kidnapping in coordination with a hostile power."
While some commenters questioned the story's authenticity, others appeared to believe the claim.
However, this claim originated as satire; The New York Times did not publish such a story, "Curtis Llama" is not a reporter for The New York Times and other people named in the story also do not exist. The Facebook account in question also responded to several commenters confirming that the story was satirical.
We reached out to the Facebook user seeking more information on the story's origin and context, and will update this story if we receive a response.
In a statement to Snopes, Naseem Amini, spokesperson for the Times, wrote: "The New York Times did not publish this story, and none of the writers listed are employed by The Times."
A search of The Times' archives using the keywords "curtis llama" did not turn up any results.
(nytimes.com)
Some people named in the story, such as "House Speaker Clay Harlow (R-KY)," are also not real people in those positions. Another, "Defense Secretary James Mattis," last held that role in 2019. (As of this writing, the House speaker is Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson and the defense secretary is Pete Hegseth.)
Lastly, we ran the image included on the Facebook post depicting a llama dressed as a reporter through AI-detection software Hive.com, which found it was 100% likely to be AI-generated.
(Hive.com)