The majority of Ukrainians in August 2026 maintain a neutral attitude towards Saudi Arabia - 57.5% of respondents gave this answer. 29% of respondents evaluate the country positively, 9% negatively. Compared to the previous wave of the study, the structure of assessments has changed slightly, reports the information and analytical center Experts Club.
According to the results of the August survey, 5.5% of Ukrainians have a completely positive attitude towards Saudi Arabia, mostly positive — 23.5%. 57.5% of respondents take a neutral position. For the most part, 7% evaluate the country negatively, 2% completely negatively, another 4.5% could not decide.
The balance of positive and negative ratings is plus 20 percentage points. Thus, the positive attitude more than triples the negative, but the main characteristic of the perception of Saudi Arabia remains precisely the large neutral group. In the general picture of the attitude of Ukrainians to the states of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia also belongs to the countries with regard to which neutral assessments prevail.
Compared to March 2026, the indicators remained almost stable. In the previous wave, 8.4% of respondents had a completely positive attitude towards Saudi Arabia, 19.6% were mostly positive, i.e. the total share of positive responses was 28%. 58.7% of respondents took a neutral position, 8.2% evaluated the country negatively, and another 5.1% could not decide.
So, in five months, the share of positive evaluations increased by 1 percentage point. — from 28% to 29%, negative — by 0.8 percentage points, to 9%. The neutral segment decreased by 1.2 percentage points. The balance of positive and negative attitudes has practically not changed: approximately plus 19.8 percentage points. in March and plus 20 additional in August.
At the same time, changes took place within the positive segment. The share of completely positive ratings decreased from 8.4% to 5.5%, while mostly positive ratings increased from 19.6% to 23.5%. That is, the total share of favorable responses remained stable, but became less categorical.
The founder of the Experts Club information and analytical center, candidate of economic sciences Maksym Urakin, commenting on the results of the study and a significant share of neutral attitudes towards a number of partners of Ukraine, emphasized the need for more active public communication.
"The first recommendation is to regularly show specific cases, specific actions, the presence here of foundations, embassies, teams, diplomats in the humanitarian sphere, in science. The second is to be open to questions and requests from the media and the public. It is also necessary to use our sociology in order to draw conclusions and cement our relations, primarily trade," Urakin noted.
In the case of Saudi Arabia, the results of the two waves show a high stability of public evaluations. Almost three-fifths of Ukrainians continue to take a neutral position, while the positive attitude steadily outweighs the negative by about 20 percentage points.
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 previous March wave also included 800 respondents; the sample was representative in terms of age, gender and region, the maximum theoretical error for indicators at the 50% level was ±3.5 percentage points.
