Three senior OpenAI national security staff held a 17-minute video call with Russian pranksters posing as the head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, The Intercept reported on 11 November, citing a recording the duo posted online. OpenAI told The Intercept it had concluded, internally and with the relevant authorities, that the call was a prank.
The three were Sasha Baker, who runs national security policy at OpenAI; Caroline Zier, its lead for strategic initiatives; and Ben Crampton, who leads its European national security work, The Intercept reported. OpenAI is one of four companies whose Pentagon prototype contracts from July 2025 are each worth up to $200 million, The Intercept reported in September: up to $800 million combined, by our sum.
Business Pill · Declared Identity Explained
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on declared identity: a rule needs someone to apply it to. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss OpenAI or this call.
The key insight: Russian pranksters posing as Ukraine’s foreign intelligence chief got 17 minutes on video with three of OpenAI’s senior national security staff, The Intercept reported, through an intermediary who believed he was dealing with Umerov. OpenAI says it investigated with the relevant authorities, concluded it was a prank and took action to prevent similar situations. Its Pentagon prototype contract is one of four worth up to $200 million each, up to $800 million combined by our sum.
More on this. The Pentagon announced OpenAI’s frontier AI prototype agreement with a value of $200 million, but federal procurement records compiled by HigherGov list $13,149,999 obligated so far, 6.6% of that by our arithmetic, against 14.8% for Google’s agreement: OpenAI’s $200M Pentagon Deal: $13.1M Obligated, or 6.6%.
The Russian comedy duo known as Vovan and Lexus “have pulled off a long string of prank telephone calls to famous figures since 2011”, The Intercept wrote. That is 15 years, by our arithmetic. The outlet noted the duo have been accused of working with their government, a charge they deny.
The duo said they arranged the meeting by pretending to be Rustem Umerov, head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, and uploaded a recording of the 17-minute video conversation to Rumble, according to The Intercept. Baker and Zier both said on the call that they had met Umerov before and were pleased to speak to him again, the outlet reported. The impersonator “appears to have kept his camera turned off for the duration of the meeting”.
Vladimir Kuznetsov, the member of the duo known as Vovan, told The Intercept the prank was simple to arrange. “We initially contacted a senior Ukrainian official in San Francisco, posing as Mr. Umerov”, he said. “Believing he was speaking with Umerov, the official offered to arrange a meeting with OpenAI.”
The call as The Intercept reported it on 11 November 2026, from a recording the duo posted, and OpenAI’s statement to the outlet. We have not viewed the recording ourselves.
What OpenAI Said
“Weeks ago, we launched a thorough investigation into the call’s authenticity”, OpenAI spokesperson Nate Evans said in a statement to The Intercept. “We acted internally and with the relevant authorities to conclude that it was a prank conducted by individuals with a history of targeting officials and other companies. We took action to prevent similar situations from happening in the future.”
The statement, as The Intercept printed it, gives no date for the call and does not describe the action taken. The Intercept said the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to its request for comment.
What the Call Covered
The participants discussed OpenAI’s military support to Ukraine, “including the possibility of providing offensive capabilities”, The Intercept reported. Asked about selling such services, Crampton said: “There’s no question, I think, from our perspective that we want to have as deep a relationship as we possibly can with Ukraine”. He added: “But it may not be possible to get to where we want to be straight away.”
“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 continued, according to The Intercept. “Part of our job is to explain that offense and defense are not necessarily distinguishable from each other under certain circumstances.”
OpenAI officials also mentioned work with the Ukrainian government around the company’s Daybreak Blue model, which The Intercept described as “a system for fixing computer vulnerabilities”, and a nascent partnership with Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense. “There has been some contact with the Ministry of Defense”, Crampton said. Baker said the company has been in contact with the Pentagon about aiding Ukraine, the outlet reported.
Asked whether OpenAI could help counter the influence of Elon Musk, Baker said: “I’m afraid we probably can’t help you with Elon Musk”.
The July 2025 Pentagon prototype contracts, each worth up to $200 million, as The Intercept reported on 8 September 2026 from contract documents. The $800 million total is our sum; these are ceilings, not amounts paid.
Where It Sits in OpenAI’s Defense Business
The Intercept’s September report, based on more than 400 pages of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, said the July 2025 deals with Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and xAI were “each worth up to $200 million”. OpenAI’s ceiling is a quarter of the up to $800 million combined, by our arithmetic. These are ceilings, not amounts paid.
An amended OpenAI contract document dated February 27 contains a clause noting that OpenAI will embed company engineers within the military, the outlet reported. OpenAI has also appointed Dan Driscoll, the former US Army secretary, as Senior Counselor for National Security Modernization, as we reported, with “a particular focus on working with U.S. allies to advance its responsible use”.
The Structural Read
As we read it, the call shows where a defense AI business is exposed outside its models: meetings with foreign officials are set up through intermediaries and trust built in earlier government jobs, and two of the three staff told the caller they had met him before, by The Intercept’s account.
As we read Crampton’s remarks, the line between offensive and defensive use is still argued inside OpenAI: he described reluctance among many senior people and said part of his team’s job is to explain that the two are not necessarily distinguishable under certain circumstances.
Ben Crampton, OpenAI, on the call as The Intercept reported it
“Part of our job is to explain that offense and defense are not necessarily distinguishable from each other under certain circumstances”
Three Implications
FOR OPENAI’S GOVERNMENT TEAMOpenAI says it acted internally and with the relevant authorities, concluded the call was a prank and took action to prevent similar situations; its statement as printed does not describe that action.
FOR THE DEFENSE CONTRACTSOpenAI is one of four labs with July 2025 Pentagon prototype contracts each worth up to $200 million, up to $800 million combined by our sum, The Intercept reported in September.
FOR THE UKRAINE WORKOpenAI staff described work with the Ukrainian government around Daybreak Blue and some contact with Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, according to The Intercept’s report of the recording.
The framework reads: “technical capability has far outpaced organizational readiness”
As we read it, the call shows that gap on the human side of a defense AI business: the meeting was arranged through an intermediary who believed he was dealing with Umerov, by Kuznetsov’s account to The Intercept, and OpenAI says it has since acted to prevent similar situations. The framework predates this call and does not discuss it.
What Is Not Established
We have not viewed the recording: the Rumble page returned a bot check to our fetch, so the call’s content here is as The Intercept reported it. When we checked Google News at about 02:30 UTC on 12 November, The Intercept was the only outlet we found reporting the call. The date of the call has not been reported beyond OpenAI’s “weeks ago”. OpenAI’s statement confirms the prank; as printed, it does not address the specific remarks quoted. We did not contact OpenAI for this piece.
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Three of OpenAI’s senior national security staff spent 17 minutes on a video call with Russian pranksters posing as Ukraine’s foreign intelligence chief, The Intercept reported, discussing offensive uses of AI, Daybreak Blue and contact with Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense. OpenAI says it investigated with the relevant authorities, concluded the call was a prank and took action to prevent similar situations.
A note on sourcing. We read The Intercept’s 11 November report in full, including OpenAI’s statement to it, and its 8 September report on the Pentagon contract documents in full. The recording on Rumble returned a bot check to our fetch, so we have not viewed it; every remark from the call is quoted as The Intercept reported it. The Driscoll appointment is from our earlier, linked piece, built on OpenAI’s own announcement.
The $800 million total, the quarter share and the 15 years are our arithmetic. We did not contact OpenAI for this piece; its response is its statement to The Intercept.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
