Russian Pranksters Dupe OpenAI Officials Into Video Chat About ‘Offensive’ AI For Ukraine

National security officials at one of the world’s top artificial intelligence labs discussed “offensive” military uses of their technology for Ukraine in a prank call.

Three senior OpenAI officials, including national security policy head Sasha Baker, strategic initiatives lead Caroline Zier and European national security lead Ben Crampton, participated in a 17-minute video call with two famous Russian pranksters impersonating Ukraine’s foreign intelligence chief Rustem Umerov, according to Vovan and Lexus’ video “Prank with AI Management” posted Wednesday on Rumble. The impersonators, Vladimir Kuznetsov (Vovan) and Alexei Stolyarov (Lexus), convinced the officials to discuss the company’s interest in contributing to the Ukraine conflict.

Baker told the pranksters that the company had a “very new” arrangement with the Department of War (DOW), according to the video call.

Vovan and Lexus asked the officials if they would give Ukraine access to AI models to support its military efforts, according to the call.

“There’s no question, I think, from our perspective that we want to have as deep a relationship as we possibly can with Ukraine,” Crampton told the pranksters. “But we have to go through a process … to get there.”

“There’s a general reluctance on the part of many people who are senior in the company to get too involved in offensive uses of our technology in a military context,” Crampton explained to the pranksters. “Part of our job is to explain that offense and defense are not necessarily distinguishable from each other under certain circumstances and that we have to think about how we can help countries in defense.”

OpenAI announced a $200 million contract with the DOW in June 2025. The contract “will … identify and prototype how frontier AI can transform its administrative operations,” the company said in the announcement.

The success of the project, called “Frontier AI Model Prototype,” will be judged by whether “warfighters, commanders” and others confirm “the capability would improve military advantage, military utility, or enhance military decision making,” according to a Feb. 27 amendment to the contract, obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“The overwhelming majority of the government and our researchers strongly support Ukraine,” Baker told the prankster duo during the call.