OpenAI announced it will give the Government of Ukraine access to its Daybreak program to support cyber defense of civilian infrastructure. Working with Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, OpenAI will make tools available to Ukrainian teams to speed up identifying software vulnerabilities and to develop and test fixes more quickly.
The announcement was made on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly by Dmytro Kushneruk, Consul General of Ukraine in San Francisco, and Sasha Baker, Head of National Security Policy at OpenAI.
Why this matters now
Ukraine faces persistent cyber attacks from Russia alongside physical attacks on infrastructure. Ukraine’s national cyber incident response team, CERT‑UA, handled nearly 6,000 cyber incidents in 2025. These incidents affected hospital systems, the energy sector and telecommunications, highlighting the sustained pressure on organizations that provide essential services.
What Daybreak offers
Daybreak gives cyber defenders access to advanced AI for authorized security work. The platform can be used to review older software, investigate suspicious activity, validate identified vulnerabilities and test patches.
Sasha Baker said in the announcement: “We are proud to support Ukraine’s cyber defenders, who are protecting essential services against attacks every day. Through Daybreak, public and private entities have an opportunity to strengthen their cyber defenses before emerging threats take hold. Ukraine is already on the front line, and its defenders need support now. We want to put more capable tools in their hands to help them find and fix vulnerabilities and protect the critical networks people depend on.”
George Osborne, Head of OpenAI for Countries, added that “Ukraine has shown under the most extreme pressure that cyber defense is a central part of national security. Protecting civilian infrastructure means defending it against both physical and digital attacks, so people can continue to live, work and access essential services. We’re now putting our technology and resources behind that effort, helping the Ukrainian government strengthen its cyber defenses with AI.”
Previous European collaborations
OpenAI has already provided access to its cyber models to defenders in Europe, including France, Germany and Poland. The EU’s cyber agency, ENISA, used the models to identify vulnerabilities in software used across EU institutions; those vulnerabilities have since been fixed.
In Poland, the national cyber agency CERT Polska used OpenAI models to discover six vulnerabilities in third‑party router software. The vendor released fixes, which CERT Polska confirmed prevent the attacks it observed.
Next steps
The access granted to Ukraine aims to accelerate the country’s ability to find and remediate software flaws and to test patches, thereby strengthening the resilience of civilian services against cyber attacks.
Related data
- Cyber incidents handled by CERT‑UA in 2025: nearly 6,000.
- Officials involved in the announcement: Dmytro Kushneruk (Consul General of Ukraine in San Francisco), Sasha Baker (Head of National Security Policy, OpenAI), George Osborne (Head of OpenAI for Countries).
