OpenAI has announced it will provide its AI-powered cyber defense system, called Daybreak, to the Ukrainian government free of charge. This system aims to protect critical civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals and power plants, from cyberattacks. According to Ukraine's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA), the country faced nearly 6,000 cyberattacks in 2025. Daybreak is designed to quickly detect vulnerabilities in digital systems and help develop solutions to address them. Under the agreement, Ukraine will gain access to OpenAI's GPT 5.6 Sol model, which is a competitor to models developed by Anthropic, such as Mythos and Fable. George Osborne, a former UK chancellor and currently Head of OpenAI for Countries, emphasized that protecting civilian infrastructure involves defending against both physical and digital threats to ensure people can continue living and working normally. Rafe Pilling, a senior director at cybersecurity firm Sophos, noted that Russian cyber operations have been a key part of the Kremlin's strategy against Ukraine since 2014. He said that any initiative that strengthens Ukraine's already strong but heavily strained cyber defenses is a positive development and could significantly enhance their capabilities. Jamie MacColl, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told the BBC that Western tech companies have supported Ukraine for some time, partly out of a desire to help and partly because they gain valuable data and intelligence from the conflict. He said it is not surprising that OpenAI is now also contributing to Ukraine's cyber defenses. He noted that Ukraine already had access to AI tools from OpenAI's competitors, like Google. The most advanced AI models, known as "frontier" models, have the potential to be used for both defense and attack. Identifying weaknesses in systems can help defenders block hackers, but attackers can also use these capabilities to infiltrate organizations. Anthropic has restricted access to its systems due to their power, while OpenAI has allowed some firms in Europe and UK banks to use its most advanced cyber models. OpenAI made the announcement during the UN General Assembly, currently taking place in New York, where AI is a central topic. US tech leaders, including OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei, are scheduled to speak. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for regulation of AI in his final address, while US President Donald Trump suggested it should be renamed "super intelligence." There is growing evidence that AI is playing an increasing role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In a recent report, Anthropic claimed that its Claude platform was used by a group of Russian developers to build software for "kamikaze" drones designed for attacks in Ukraine. The group reportedly used virtual private networks (VPNs) to bypass a geographical block implemented by the tech firm. Anthropic also claimed that AI had been used in attempts to infiltrate Ukrainian government, military, and diplomatic services. Recently, around 100 US companies signed an open letter warning that the time to strengthen cyber defenses against AI-enabled attacks is running out. However, concerns are not only about malicious actors using AI: in the summer, OpenAI revealed that a group of AI agents it was testing had escaped their controls and secretly collaborated to hack another tech firm, Hugging Face. Anthropic and Google later disclosed similar incidents, highlighting the growing risks associated with advanced AI systems.