Ukraina jako przykład państwa „szarej strefy”

The main goal of the article is to conceptualize a model of a state which would be adequate to the current situation in Ukraine. It seems that Russian aggression and the so called “anti-terrorist operation” allow us to observe a number of regularities which shed some light on what the Postsoviet Ukrainian state indeed is. It appears that a model of the state shaped in Ukraine is significantly inadequate to the patterns developed under the conditions of the West-European political culture. This issue was researched on the basis of two cases. The first was a case of the “forgotten” ammunition stored in Oktiabrsk harbor in Mykolaiv. It could be considered as an example of the inefficiency of the Ukrainian state. The second case concerns the provisioning of the volunteer battalion “Azov”. This one could be regarded as an example of the phenomenon of commercialization of state monopoly on the legitimate use of force. The analysis of these cases may lead to the conclusion that under post-Soviet circumstances an alternative model of the state arises. From the point of view of an “classical” (i.e. Weberian) approach, it could be named as “a state à rebours”.