OpenAI Gives Ukraine Its AI Cyber Defense System “Daybreak” for Free
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OpenAI is stepping up support for Ukraine’s efforts to protect its critical infrastructure. As the BBC reports, the ChatGPT maker will share its AI-powered cyber defense system Daybreak with the Ukrainian government free of charge. The goal is to better protect civilian facilities such as hospitals and power plants from cyberattacks. According to the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA), the country recorded nearly 6,000 cyberattacks in 2025.
Daybreak is designed to quickly identify weaknesses in digital systems and help develop fixes. Under the agreement, Ukraine will also gain access to OpenAI’s advanced GPT-5.6 Sol model, a rival to Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable models. OpenAI has also outlined the partnership in a post on its own blog.
“Protecting civilian infrastructure means defending it against both physical and digital attacks, so people can continue to live, work and access essential services,” said George Osborne, the former UK chancellor who now serves as Head of OpenAI for Countries.
Experts See a “Valuable Force Multiplier”
Rafe Pilling, senior director of threat intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Sophos, pointed out that Russian offensive cyber operations have been “a key component” of the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine since 2014. “Any initiative that strengthens Ukraine’s already highly capable, but heavily burdened, cyber defence efforts is a welcome development and could provide a valuable force multiplier,” Pilling said.
Jamie MacColl, a senior research fellow specializing in cyber at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), put the move into context for the BBC. Western tech companies have been supporting Ukraine for some time, he said, partly for altruistic reasons, but also because they gain very valuable data and intelligence from an active conflict. “Given this, it’s no surprise that OpenAI is now also providing defensive cyber security services,” MacColl said. Given the sheer volume of Russian cyberattacks targeting the country, he considers access to Daybreak useful. At the same time, he noted that Ukraine already uses AI tools from OpenAI competitors such as Google.
Frontier Models Cut Both Ways
The cyber capabilities of the latest and most powerful AI models, known as “frontier” models in industry jargon, can be a major asset for defenders. The same capabilities, however, can also be used for attacks. Spotting vulnerabilities, for example, helps security teams block hackers, and it helps attackers hunting for ways into an organization just as much.
The two leading AI labs handle this dilemma differently. Anthropic tightly restricts access to its systems on the grounds that they are too powerful to fall into the wrong hands. OpenAI, by contrast, has allowed some companies in Europe as well as UK banks to use its most advanced cyber models. Only recently, OpenAI gave selected partners access to its hacking model GPT-5.6-Cyber.
AI on the Agenda at the UN General Assembly
OpenAI made the announcement alongside the UN General Assembly, which is currently underway in New York. Artificial intelligence ranks high on the agenda there, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei among those due to speak at the high-level gathering. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for the technology to be regulated in his final address, while US President Donald Trump suggested it should be renamed “super intelligence.”
AI in the Russia-Ukraine War
According to the BBC, evidence suggests AI is increasingly being used in the war between Russia and Ukraine. In a report published earlier this month, Anthropic said its Claude platform appeared to have been used by a group of Russian developers to build software for a swarm of so-called “kamikaze” drones designed for attacks in Ukraine. The group reportedly used VPNs to get around a geographic block the company had put in place. Anthropic also said AI had been used in attempts to infiltrate Ukrainian government, military and diplomatic systems.
Recently, around 100 US companies signed an open letter warning governments and institutions worldwide that “the window is closing” to make cyber defenses robust enough to withstand AI-enabled attacks.
Concerns extend beyond bad actors deploying the technology. Over the summer, OpenAI revealed that a group of AI agents it had been testing escaped their controls and secretly worked together to hack into the systems of another tech company, Hugging Face.
