American company OpenAI has announced that it is granting the Ukrainian government full free access to its advanced “Daybreak” defense program, powered by the “GPT-5.6 Sol” model, to protect Ukrainian critical civilian infrastructure, energy grids, and telecommunications networks from ongoing Russian cyberattacks.
Article index:
- Partnership announcement on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York
- Direct cooperation with the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation
- Escalating cyberattacks on energy and hospitals
- Precedents of deploying the system in France, Germany, and Poland
- Concerns over the militarization of AI and drone applications
- George Osborne’s statements and actual conflict intelligence
- Frequently asked questions
Partnership announcement on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York
OpenAI announced on Wednesday that it is providing the Ukrainian government with free and comprehensive access to its advanced cybersecurity security program, “Daybreak,” to help secure vital facilities and counter ongoing Russian digital attacks targeting the country’s networks.
The disclosure of this strategic initiative came on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York via a joint announcement by Dmytro Kushneruk, Consul General of Ukraine in San Francisco, and Sasha Baker, Head of National Security Policy at OpenAI. It included granting Kyiv exclusive access to the latest specialized reasoning models, “GPT-5.6 Sol,” to support digital defenses.
Direct cooperation with the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation
The cooperation is based on a close and direct partnership with the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation, where OpenAI will provide government cybersecurity teams with advanced intelligence tools enabling continuous automated code scanning, detection of hidden security vulnerabilities, rapid investigation of suspicious digital activities, and testing of defense updates in record time.
Sasha Baker said at the announcement conference: “Ukraine is on the front lines of the confrontation, and Ukrainian defenders urgently need immediate support. We seek to place our most powerful smart tools in their hands to enable them to detect vulnerabilities and secure the sensitive civilian networks that millions of citizens rely on daily.”
Escalating cyberattacks on energy and hospitals
This technological support comes amid a sharp escalation in the pace of cyber warfare. Official statistics released by Ukraine’s Computer Emergency Response Team showed handling approximately 6,000 complex cyber incidents during 2025, registering a 37 percent annual jump.
These targeted disruptive attacks focused on critical infrastructure indispensable to daily life, including the digital systems of hospitals and healthcare networks, electric power transmission stations and networks, and telecommunications systems, in an effort to paralyze the movement of the Ukrainian state and society in parallel with military operations on the ground.
Precedents of deploying the system in France, Germany, and Poland
OpenAI confirmed that Ukraine is not the first country to benefit from its defense program, as the company previously provided its tools to cybersecurity teams in France, Germany, Poland, and several other European countries to enhance the immunity of the Western digital space.
The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity used OpenAI models to scan and secure software across all EU institutions and patch discovered vulnerabilities. Furthermore, the Polish national cybersecurity agency successfully used the models to discover six critical vulnerabilities in third-party router software, and urgent security updates were issued to address them.
Concerns over the militarization of AI and drone applications
The initiative coincides with mounting concerns over the militarization of intelligence in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Earlier this month, Anthropic revealed that Russian developers used its Claude platform via virtual private networks to bypass geographic restrictions and program combat suicide drones.
Rafe Pilling, Director of Threat Intelligence at Sophos, emphasized that cyberattacks have constituted a central element of the aggression against Ukraine since 2014, considering any step to support Kyiv’s defenses a welcome development. Meanwhile, researchers at the Royal United Services Institute in London noted that Western technology companies are gaining invaluable intelligence and informational insights from this support regarding actual hybrid warfare tactics.
George Osborne’s statements and actual conflict intelligence
George Osborne, Vice President of Global Affairs at OpenAI, affirmed that digital defense efforts are inseparable from the comprehensive humanitarian reality, stressing that protecting civilian infrastructure means safeguarding people’s lives and enabling them to continue working and accessing basic services under harsh wartime conditions.
This step reflects OpenAI’s transition toward playing a direct geopolitical role in international conflicts by deploying its artificial intelligence as a cyber deterrence arm to protect democratic systems, amid widespread anticipation regarding the effectiveness of reasoning models in repelling complex attacks by advanced disruptive groups.
Frequently asked questions
Question: What is the cyber program that OpenAI granted to the Ukrainian government?
Answer: It granted free access to the Daybreak defense program powered by the GPT-5.6 Sol reasoning model.
Question: How many cyber incidents and attacks did Ukraine handle in 2025?
Answer: Ukrainian emergency teams handled nearly 6,000 cyberattacks, representing a 37 percent annual increase.
Question: What are the prominent European countries that preceded Ukraine in using the Daybreak program?
Answer: The program was deployed and its security effectiveness tested in France, Germany, Poland, and European Union institutions.
