While the role of volunteers in sustaining the Ukrainian armed forces against the backdrop of
Russian aggression since 2014 has been widely acknowledged in literature, the effect of volunteer
initiatives on the state defense capacity in longer term has not been studied thus far. This
article aims to address this gap and explore whether volunteer participation led to institutional
strengthening of the Ukrainian defense state capacity or to its weakening. The analysis will
conclude that the volunteers in fact contributed to both - strengthening the state and weakening
it at the same time; the outcome dependent on the context in which the volunteers took action
at different times. While volunteer participation failed to bring about systemic reform, it did
provide powerful democratic oversight over the state’s key defense institution.