Italy maintains one of the highest levels of positive perception among Ukrainians: in August 2026, 70.1% of respondents have a positive attitude towards the country, while only 2.9% have a negative attitude. Compared to March, the overall share of positive evaluations has practically not changed, but within this group there have been more respondents with an unambiguously positive position. This is evidenced by the results of the Active Group and Experts Club research, reports the information and analytical center Experts Club.
According to the results of the August survey, 24.3% of Ukrainians have a completely positive attitude towards Italy, mostly positive — 45.8%. 25% of respondents take a neutral position. For the most part, 2.7% evaluate the country negatively, only 0.2% completely negatively, another 2% could not decide.
The balance of positive and negative evaluations is plus 67.2 percentage points. According to this indicator, Italy is included in the group of countries with the highest level of positive attitude of Ukrainians and occupies a high position among the countries of Western and Southern Europe.
In March 2026, the aggregate share of positive evaluations of Italy was 70.2%. Then 19.3% of respondents characterized their attitude as completely positive, 50.8% as mostly positive. 28.9% were neutral about the country, only about 0.5% were negative.
Thus, the overall level of positive attitude in five months, it actually remained unchanged — about 70%. At the same time, the share of completely positive evaluations increased by approximately 5 percentage points — from 19.3% to 24.3%, while mostly positive evaluations decreased by approximately the same 5 percentage points. This indicates a certain increase in the intensity of positive perception among some respondents.
At the same time, the share of neutral assessments decreased from 28.9% to 25%, while negative assessments increased to 2.9%. Because of this, the balance of positive and negative attitudes decreased from approximately plus 69.7 percentage points. in March up to plus 67.2 percent. in August, however, remains very high.
"The consistently high level of positive attitude of Ukrainians towards Italy is important not only from the point of view of public attitudes, but also in the context of economic relations between the two countries. Italy remains one of the key trading partners of Ukraine in Europe, and the positive perception of the country creates a favorable background for the development of business contacts, investments, tourism and humanitarian cooperation. It is especially telling that the share of unequivocally positive evaluations is growing, although the overall level of support has remained very high for a long time," noted Maksym Urakin, founder of the Experts Club information and analytical center.
Italy also has significant economic weight for Ukraine. In the first half of 2026, it took third place among individual countries in terms of the volume of Ukrainian merchandise exports — about $1.28 billion. The high level of public support is thus combined with significant trade and economic ties.
A new wave of research shows that this positive image has generally been preserved: about seven out of ten Ukrainians continue to have a positive assessment of Italy, and the share of unequivocally positive answers even has increased.
The survey was conducted in August 2026 using the method of self-completion of online questionnaires in the SunFlowerSociology panel among 800 citizens of Ukraine over the age of 18. The sample is representative in terms of age, gender and region, the maximum theoretical error is ±3.5 percentage points.
