The regularities of the nitrogen and argon plasma formation in a hollow cathode with the volume up to 0.2–0.5 m3 using the short-pulsed (1–10 μs) high-frequency (100 kHz) voltage to 3 kV are presented in the paper. It is shown that despite the pulsed nature of voltage, the gaseous discharge steadily burns at the pressure of 0.1 Pa and higher, the discharge current value and plasma concentration grow as the voltage pulse duration and voltage amplitude increase, the general discharge current reaches 10 A, providing the density of the ion saturation current on the items placed in plasma up to 0.5 mA/cm2.