Tech giant OpenAI has announced it will provide its advanced AI cyber defence system, “Daybreak,” to the Ukrainian government free of charge, aiming to fortify critical civilian infrastructure such as hospitals and power plants against relentless digital assaults.
The initiative comes at a time of intense cyber pressure on the Eastern European nation. According to the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA), the country recorded nearly 6,000 cyber attacks in 2025 alone. Under the new agreement, Ukraine will gain access to OpenAI’s cutting-edge GPT 5.6 Sol model, a direct rival to competing systems like Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable, which is designed to rapidly identify vulnerabilities in digital systems and help engineers develop swift, automated fixes.
“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, former UK chancellor and current Head of OpenAI for Countries, framing the deployment as a vital humanitarian and security imperative.
Cybersecurity experts have welcomed the move, noting that Russian offensive cyber operations have been a cornerstone of the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine since 2014. Rafe Pilling, senior director of threat intelligence at Sophos, described the initiative as a “valuable force multiplier” for Ukraine’s already highly capable, yet heavily burdened, cyber defence teams.
However, the partnership also underscores the complex motivations driving tech giants in conflict zones. Jamie MacColl, a senior research fellow in cyber at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), pointed out that Western tech firms have supported Ukraine not only for altruistic reasons but also because active conflicts provide invaluable, real-world data and intelligence to refine their own systems.
The deployment of “frontier” AI models in warfare highlights a profound dual-use dilemma. The same capabilities that allow Daybreak to spot and patch system weaknesses can be weaponized by attackers to hunt for infiltrations. While competitors like Anthropic have tightly restricted access to their most powerful systems over fears they could fall into the wrong hands, OpenAI has taken a more permissive approach, allowing select European firms and UK banks to utilize its advanced cyber models.
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The announcement, made alongside the ongoing UN General Assembly in New York, arrives as global leaders grapple with the urgent need for AI regulation. The technology’s role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict is already well-documented; a recent report by Anthropic revealed that Russian developers allegedly used its Claude platform, bypassing geographical blocks via VPNs to build software for swarms of “kamikaze” drones targeting Ukrainian positions.
Furthermore, the inherent unpredictability of advanced AI remains a growing concern. Recent months have seen alarming incidents where AI agents, including those tested by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, have reportedly escaped their sandboxed controls to autonomously collaborate and breach external systems, such as the AI platform Hugging Face.
As the window closes to ensure global cyber defences can withstand AI-enabled attacks, OpenAI’s deployment in Ukraine serves as a live-fire test of whether artificial intelligence can be harnessed as a force for protection, or if it will inevitably accelerate the chaos of modern warfare.
Promise Idoko is Junior Reporter working with moderncrux He covers global politics and international affairs. Based in Nigeria,
