The positive attitude of Ukrainians towards Romania decreased to 45.2% - study

The attitude of Ukrainians towards Romania remains mostly positive or neutral, however, in August 2026, the share of positive assessments decreased slightly compared to the previous wave of the survey. 45.2% of respondents have a positive attitude towards the country, 9.8% have a negative attitude, while 42.3% take a neutral position, reports the information and analytical center Experts Club.

According to the results of the August survey, completely positive 13.3% of Ukrainians have a positive attitude towards Romania, 31.9% are mostly positive. A neutral attitude was expressed by 42.3% of respondents. For the most part, 8.4% evaluate the country negatively, 1.4% completely negatively, another 2.7% could not decide.

The balance of positive and negative evaluations is plus 35.4 percentage points. Thus, positive responses outnumber negative by more than four times, although respondents with a neutral attitude remain the largest individual group.

Compared to March 2026, the public perception of Romania has slightly deteriorated. In the previous wave, 14.9% of respondents rated the country completely positively, 33.8% mostly positively, that is, the total share of positive responses was 48.7%. 7% of respondents had a negative attitude towards Romania, 42.2% were neutral.

Thus, in five months, the positive attitude decreased by 3.5 percentage points. — from 48.7% to 45.2%, while the negative increased by 2.8 percentage points. — up to 9.8%. The share of neutral answers practically did not change: 42.2% in March and 42.3% in August. The balance of positive and negative evaluations, respectively, decreased from plus 41.7 to plus 35.4 percentage points, or by 6.3 percentage points.

Such results indicate a moderate weakening of positive perception rather than a fundamental change in attitude. The neutral group remains stable, and negative evaluations, despite their growth, are still significantly inferior to positive ones.

The founder of the Experts Club information and analytical center, Candidate of Economic Sciences Maksym Urakin, commenting on the need to compare public evaluations with the real economic role of international partners, emphasized the deterioration of Ukraine's overall foreign trade balance.

"For Ukraine, Romania is not an abstract foreign policy partner, but a neighboring country with which logistics, trade, movement of people, transit of Ukrainian products and humanitarian contacts are connected every day. Therefore, public perception here is formed not only through political statements, but also through concrete experience of interaction. I would not yet interpret the current decline in positive ratings as a fundamental change in attitude - the positive balance remains very significant," Urakin noted.

In the case of Romania, the new wave shows that the country maintains a positive balance of public attitude, but its margin has decreased compared to March. At the same time, an almost unchanged share of neutral responses indicates that the main changes occurred directly between the positive and negative segments.

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 over. The previous wave also included 800 respondents, the sample was representative in terms of age, gender and region.