OpenAI has banned a group of Russian ChatGPT accounts that were allegedly used to support a covert influence operation.
The accounts reportedly bypassed access restrictions using VPNs and used ChatGPT to generate social media posts and comments that were distributed across platforms including Substack, Telegram, X, Facebook and LinkedIn.
According to OpenAI, the accounts were being used to promote the International Burke Institute (IBI), a self-described expert community based in Israel. The company said its investigation into AI-generated social media content uncovered a much larger operation involving a website containing copied and misattributed academic material, along with a sovereignty index designed to present Russia in a favorable way while criticizing Western countries.
OpenAI said the campaign reached relatively small audiences, although some Telegram channels had attracted between 10,000 and 20,000 followers each. Most of the generated material was written in English, and the operators reportedly instructed ChatGPT to remove linguistic clues that could reveal their Russian origins.
The IBI brand is linked to the website ibi.institute, which was registered in February 2025. The site presents itself as a global community of experts covering areas such as economics, politics, sociology and international relations.
OpenAI said there is no evidence that the articles published on the website were generated using ChatGPT. However, many appeared to have been copied from academic publications, with some containing incorrect attribution. Other material appeared to have been written by a Slavic-language speaker before being translated into English using machine translation.
The company also said the operation was separate from previously documented Russia-linked influence campaigns. One of its main features was a so-called Sovereignty Index, also known as the Burke Index, which was used to assess countries across seven categories: political, economic, technological, information, cultural, cognitive and military sovereignty.
According to the IBI website, each category receives a score of up to 100 points based on official national and international data as well as expert assessments. The seven scores are then combined to produce a final Sovereignty Index ranging from 100 to 700.
The website also publishes country reports based on the index. The United States is listed with a score of 650.9, followed by China at 649.1, Switzerland at 610.7 and Russia at 601.4.
The report on Russia describes the country as having a high level of sovereignty, strong military and economic self-sufficiency, and a significant scientific and cultural base. It also identifies demographic aging, innovation constraints and limited civilian economic flexibility as challenges.
The campaign was not limited to promoting the institute and its content. OpenAI said one of the ChatGPT users also used the service to create a profile picture for a Telegram channel called “American Observer” and repeatedly requested Russian-language summaries of the channel’s activity.
OpenAI said the importance of the operation was not primarily the size of its audience but the infrastructure created behind it. The campaign combined AI-generated promotional content with a seemingly credible institution, purported experts, republished academic material and a proprietary-looking risk index.
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The company said the case demonstrates how influence operators can use AI as one part of a wider effort to create an appearance of authority, hide the origins of favored narratives and build assets that could potentially be expanded over time. OpenAI also said the use of AI as a supporting tool helped investigators identify the broader operation.
OpenAI Bans Russian ChatGPT Accounts Used in Influence Operation
