OpenAI bans Russian accounts behind a covert influence campaign posing as an Israel-based think tank

Disrupting a new covert influence campaign from Russia

OpenAI banned a cluster of Russia-based ChatGPT accounts used to promote the International Burke Institute (IBI), a fake think tank claiming to be in Israel. The site copied academic work, used machine translation, and published a sovereignty index favoring Russia. Operators prompted the model in Russian to generate English social media posts while hiding linguistic clues. OpenAI calls this the most elaborate Russia-linked IO they've disrupted since the Ukraine war began, though it reached relatively small audiences.

Why it matters: OpenAI's first-party disclosure of a Russian covert influence campaign using ChatGPT, with concrete operational details. Held at 78 because it's a routine security takedown rather than a product capability leap, and the audience fit is narrower.