Turkey maintains a mostly positive perception among Ukrainians: in August 2026, a total of 52.3% of respondents expressed a positive attitude towards it, while a negative one - about 7.5%. At the same time, compared to the previous survey in March, the share of positive assessments slightly decreased. This is evidenced by the results of the third wave of the Active Group and Experts Club research, reports the information and analytical center Experts Club.
According to the results of the August survey, 11.2% of Ukrainians have a completely positive attitude towards Turkey, mostly positive — 41.1%. 37.6% of respondents take a neutral position. For the most part, 6.7% evaluate the country negatively, 0.8% completely negatively, another 2.7% could not decide.
The balance of positive and negative attitudes is about plus 44.9 percentage points and is the highest among the countries of the Middle East represented in the study. Thus, despite a certain decrease in the indicator, Turkey remains a country with a distinct preponderance of positive assessments over negative ones.
Compared to March In 2026, the positive attitude weakened moderately. At that time, 14.5% of respondents rated Turkey completely positively, 40.6% mostly positively, that is, the total positive indicator was 55%. Negative answers made up 5.6%, neutral - 36.4%.
Thus, in five months, the total share of positive assessments decreased by 2.7 percentage points. — from 55% to 52.3%. Negative attitudes, on the contrary, increased by approximately 1.9 percentage points, and the share of neutral responses increased by 1.2 percentage points. The balance of positive and negative decreased from 49.4 pp. in March to about 44.9 percent. in August This indicates a moderate cooling of assessments rather than a fundamental change of attitude.
At the same time, Turkey remains one of Ukraine's largest trade partners. In the first half of 2026, bilateral turnover approached $4.9 billion: Ukrainian exports amounted to about $1.78 billion, imports — $3.12 billion. Turkey was the second separate market for Ukrainian goods after Poland, and Ukraine's deficit in bilateral trade was about $1.34 billion.
The founder of the Experts Club information and analytical center, Candidate of Economic Sciences Maksym Urakin, commenting the relationship between the economy and public perception of trading partners, noted:
"If the society sees that a powerful flow of imports is leaving the country, but does not see a symmetrical movement of investments, technologies or localization of production, a feeling of imbalance arises. And this directly affects the emotional perception of the partner. That is why states with a large surplus in trade with Ukraine should work especially carefully on the reputation component of their presence on the Ukrainian market," Urakin said.
In the case of Turkey, the survey results show that a significant trade imbalance is currently combined with a mostly positive public perception. At the same time, the dynamics between March and August indicate a gradual reduction in the preference for positive evaluations.
The survey in August 2026 was conducted using the method of self-completion of online questionnaires in the SunFlowerSociology panel among 800 citizens of Ukraine aged 18 and over. The sample is representative in terms of age, gender and region, the maximum theoretical error is ±3.5 percentage points.
