The Role of Volunteering in the Consolidation of Ukrainian Society under Conditions of Full-Scale War

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the role of volunteering in the consolidation of Ukrainian society under the conditions of the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war, as well as to determine its significance as a factor of social cohesion, public trust, horizontal solidarity and civic mobilization. The article uses an interdisciplinary approach that combines elements of political, sociological and comparative analysis. The empirical basis of the study consists of sociological survey data from the Razumkov Centre and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, financial reports of leading Ukrainian charitable foundations, including Come Back Alive, the Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation and UNITED24, as well as the results of recent studies on charitable activity of Ukrainians during the war. The scientific novelty of the article lies in substantiating volunteering not only as a form of charitable or humanitarian assistance, but also as a systemic socio-political mechanism for the consolidation of Ukrainian society. It is proved that after the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation in 2022, the volunteer movement acquired a new quality: it became an infrastructure of civic self-organization, a channel for mobilizing social resources, a space for building trust and a practical mechanism of interaction between citizens, the state, charitable foundations, business and international partners. Particular attention is paid to trust in volunteers and the dynamics of charitable contributions as empirical indicators of social cohesion and society’s readiness for joint action. It is substantiated that volunteering in contemporary Ukraine performs not only a compensatory function, but also integrative, mobilization and consolidation functions. The conclusions emphasize that preserving the consolidation potential of volunteering requires maintaining public trust, ensuring transparency of charitable practices, introducing digital verification of fundraising, preventing pseudo-volunteering and developing a partnership model of interaction between the state and civil society.