Summary
- OpenAI is granting Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation access to Daybreak, its AI solution designed to identify and rectify software vulnerabilities.
- In 2025, Ukraine's CERT-UA reported handling nearly 6,000 cyberattacks, marking a 37% rise from 2024, with local governments and agencies being the primary targets.
- This announcement follows OpenAI's commitment on September 3 to provide $1 billion in subsidized access to Daybreak, promising to extend the offer to "partner countries" shortly thereafter.
OpenAI is extending its support to the Ukrainian government by providing access to Daybreak, an AI tool engineered to detect software vulnerabilities—critical flaws that cybercriminals exploit to infiltrate systems—before they can be targeted by Russian hackers.
The announcement was made to Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation during the UN General Assembly, with Dmytro Kushneruk, Ukraine's Consul General in San Francisco, and Sasha Baker, OpenAI's Head of National Security Policy, jointly revealing the news.
Daybreak operates on the GPT-5.6 Sol model, OpenAI's advanced large language model, which is the same technology behind ChatGPT. It is trained on extensive datasets of text and code, enabling it to analyze software like a human expert would. The tool assesses aging systems for vulnerabilities, verifies if a suspected flaw is exploitable, and ensures that any patches effectively resolve the issue before deployment.
“We are proud to support Ukraine’s cyber defenders, who are protecting essential services against attacks every day,” stated Sasha Baker from OpenAI. “Ukraine is already on the front line, and its defenders need support now.”
Ukraine is not the first nation embroiled in conflict to receive OpenAI's assistance. The company has also provided its cybersecurity tools to agencies in France, Germany, and Poland, with CERT Polska utilizing the technology to identify six vulnerabilities in commercial router software, all of which have since been addressed by the vendor.
The timing of this initiative aligns well with OpenAI's earlier commitment on September 3, when it pledged $1 billion in subsidized access to Daybreak for defense teams worldwide, stating that it would soon include "partner countries."
OpenAI's relationship with military applications has evolved; until January 2024, its policies explicitly prohibited any use of its technology for military purposes. However, that restriction was quietly removed from its policy page on January 10, shortly before CEO Sam Altman and the Vice President of Global Affairs discussed the company's collaboration with the Pentagon on cybersecurity tools at the Davos summit.
Not all observers interpret the tech giant's support for Ukraine as purely altruistic. Jamie MacColl, a cyber researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, remarked to the BBC that Western companies often derive significant intelligence from active conflict zones. "It's no surprise that OpenAI is now also providing defensive cybersecurity services," MacColl noted.
For Kyiv, the underlying motives behind OpenAI's offer are secondary to the practical benefits. Each vulnerability that Daybreak identifies before Russian operatives can exploit it effectively buys critical time. OpenAI's $1 billion commitment indicated the company's intention to extend its program to partner nations promptly, and Ukraine's access, announced just weeks later, serves as a clear indication of that promise being fulfilled.