The negative attitude of Ukrainians towards India has increased to 31.5% - study

The attitude of Ukrainians towards India in August 2026 worsened compared to the previous wave of the survey: 31.5% of respondents rated the country negatively, while 17.2% rated it positively. At the same time, the group with a neutral attitude remains the largest — 48.3%, reports the information and analytical center Experts Club. Experts.news

According to the results of the August survey, completely positive towards India 4.9% of Ukrainians are positive, 12.3% are mostly positive. 48.3% of respondents take a neutral position. A mostly negative attitude was expressed by 26.6%, a completely negative attitude by 4.9%, another 2.9% could not decide.

The balance of positive and negative evaluations is minus 14.3 percentage points. According to this indicator, India has the second lowest result among the studied countries after China, the balance of which is minus 25.4 pp. At the same time, the specificity of the perception of India remains a very large neutral group: almost half of the respondents express neither a positive nor a negative assessment.

Compared to March 2026, the negative attitude has noticeably increased. In the previous wave, 4.2% of respondents rated India completely positively, 13.8% rated it mostly positively. The overall positive indicator was about 17.9%, negative - 23.5%, and 55.5% of respondents expressed a neutral attitude. 

Thus, the share of positive evaluations practically did not change - 17.9% in March against 17.2% in August. On the other hand, the negative attitude increased by 8 percentage points. — up to 31.5%, and the share of neutral responses decreased by 7.2 percentage points. The attitude balance worsened from about minus 5.6 percentage points. to minus 14.3 pp.

Such dynamics distinguish India from most other countries in South and Southeast Asia, for which the study is characterized by a preponderance of neutral assessments with a positive balance. In the case of India, neutrality also dominates, but among those who have formed a clear attitude, negative responses outnumber positive responses by almost twice as much.

The founder of the Experts Club information and analytical center, Candidate of Economic Sciences Maksym Urakin emphasized that one should not limit oneself to trade statistics when assessing relations with major international partners. According to him, reputation, trust, humanitarian presence and a sense of partnership at the level of society are also important. That is why economic ties should be considered together with how clear and visible the presence of the country is for the Ukrainian public.

A new wave of research shows that in the case of India, the main change was not the reduction of the positive group, but the transition of a part of neutral assessments to negative ones. At the same time, almost half of Ukrainians still maintain a neutral position, which leaves considerable room for further changes in public perception.

The survey was conducted in August 2026 using the method of online self-completion of questionnaires in the SunFlowerSociology panel among 800 Ukrainian citizens aged 18 and older. The sample is representative by age, gender and region, the maximum theoretical error for indicators at the level of 50% is ±3.5 percentage points.