OpenAI, the US company behind ChatGPT, will hand Ukraine's government free access to a cyber-defense system and its most powerful artificial-intelligence (AI) model, Ukrainian defense outlet Militarnyi reported. The company unveiled the deal alongside the UN General Assembly, pitching it as a cyber shield for the hospitals and power plants Russia keeps targeting.

Russia's war on Ukraine runs through wires as much as skies. Its hackers have hammered energy, transport, and defense networks for years, on top of the blackouts its missiles already force on Ukrainian cities—and Western tech firms have kept stepping in to help hold the line.

What the Daybreak system does

The tool is called Daybreak. It scans digital systems, finds their weak points fast, and helps specialists close them, the report said. Daybreak handles the whole job on its own—a loop of inventory, detection, verification, assignment, remediation, and confirming the fix held.

The system is meant to shield civilian infrastructure, hospitals and power stations among it, from cyberattacks, BBC reported. Ukraine's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA) logged nearly 6,000 cyberattacks in 2025.

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Ukraine also gets OpenAI's top model

The agreement opens access to GPT 5.6 Sol, OpenAI's flagship and strongest model. The company built it for complex professional work—programming, research, science, and cybersecurity, the report said. Both come as part of one agreement between OpenAI and Kyiv.

George Osborne—Britain's former chancellor and now Head of OpenAI for Countries—put the aim plainly.

"Protecting civilian infrastructure means defending it against both physical and digital attacks, so people can continue to live, work and access essential services," he said.

Independent analysts called the deal useful but not unprecedented. Rafe Pilling of cyber firm Sophos said it could serve as a force multiplier for a Ukrainian cyber defense that is already highly capable but heavily burdened. Jamie MacColl of the Royal United Services Institute noted that Western tech firms have been supporting Ukraine for some time, partly altruistically but also because they gain valuable intelligence from an active conflict, and that Ukraine already has access to AI tools from OpenAI's competitors, including Google. The same frontier AI capabilities cut both ways—spotting weaknesses helps defenders block hackers and attackers find a way in.

OpenAI's rival Anthropic has restricted access to its most powerful cyber models on those grounds, while OpenAI has opened them to some European firms and UK banks, BBC reported.

Ukraine has authorized 81 private companies to run their own air defense against Russian drones, letting the factories and infrastructure sites that Moscow hits daily shoot back, Ukraine's Defense Ministry says. The firms have been provided "authorized" status under an experimental program, a count that has climbed from 51 in mid-July, according to ArmyInform.

The idea is to let the targets defend themselves. Russian drones strike Ukrainian factories, warehouses, and power sites so relentlessly that the state cannot shield everyone, so the Defense Ministry is enlisting the companies being hit to form their own drone-defense teams.

Ninety-two firms have already applied, among them operators of critical infrastructure and businesses from across the country's industries and regions. The teams are not freelancers: they fold into Ukraine's layered air defense under the command of the Air Force, so they do not fire into a shared sky blind.

The count climbs fast

The program has grown quickly since it began in late 2025, from 24 companies in April to 30 in June, 51 in July, and 81 by mid-September. The units are made of trained, certified civilian staff, some running mobile fire teams with heavy machine guns, others flying interceptor drones.

By June, they had already shot down more than 20 Russian attack and reconnaissance drones, the ministry said, including one jet-powered Geran, the faster variant that has strained Ukraine's defenses.

Russia's drones drive the demand

The Defense Ministry launched the project at the end of 2025 to add a layer of protection for workers and production sites that had become routine targets.

The goal the ministry set for the wider effort is stark: detect every aerial threat and destroy 95 percent of them. The steady climb in members, roughly one company added per day since July, suggests that demand is not slowing.