In a recent study conducted by the Razumkov Center probing Ukrainians’ perceptions of foreign nations, Poland witnessed a notable downturn in favorability ratings.
The report revealed that while a majority of respondents held positive views towards several countries, including Canada (93 percent), Latvia (93 percent), the United Kingdom (92 percent), Lithuania (92 percent), France (92 percent), and Estonia (91 percent), Poland’s standing faced a significant decline.
Meanwhile, despite Warsaw being one of Kyiv’s biggest advocates throughout the ongoing conflict with Russia, and receiving more Ukrainian refugees than any other country at the outbreak of the war, Poland’s positive sentiment among Ukrainians plummeted to just 58 percent.
This has decreased significantly from 79 percent recorded in a similar survey in February this year. For comparison, in 2023, the percentage of positive opinions about Poland was as high as 94 percent.
Hungary received the highest negative rating (63 percent) in the survey, with Belarus and Russia not included for obvious reasons.
Respondents were also asked to rate the negative impact of external events and processes on Ukraine on a five-point scale from 1 to 5, where “1” indicates no impact and “5” indicates a very strong negative impact.
Ukrainians rated the influence of issues in relations with Poland the most negatively, particularly the long-term border blockade by Polish farmers and truckers (average negative impact rating of 4.5 points).
Following closely were: disputes in the domestic politics of the United States, hindering military and financial support for Ukraine (4.4 points), unfriendly policies of Hungarian authorities blocking Ukraine’s European integration process (4.3 points), complications in the political and socio-economic situation in Europe and growing “war fatigue” in Ukraine (4.2 points), and the inability of global and regional security structures to prevent escalation of conflicts on the world stage, particularly in stopping Russian aggression (4.2 points).
