Over 40 percent of Ukrainians have positive feelings toward Russia and about 13 percent toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Oleksandr Yaremenko Ukrainian Institute of Social Studies, the Social Monitoring public survey center, and the Sociological Group Rating found after conducting a public opinion poll.
The findings presented at the Interfax-Ukraine press center on May 16 show that 9.2 percent of the respondents have very positive and 31.4 percent quite positive attitudes toward Russia, while 31.4 percent saw Russia rather negatively and 28 percent very negatively.
Asked about their attitudes toward Putin, 12.6 percent of those polled described them as positive, 65.6 percent as negative, 16.6 percent as neutral, 4.7 percent were undecided, and 0.4 percent said they did not know this person.
As many as 53 percent of the respondents said they had positive attitudes toward Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, 11.7 percent negative, 30.5 percent neutral, 4 percent were undecided, and 4 percent said they did not know him.
Asked about their attitudes toward U.S. President Donald Trump, 22.6 percent described them as positive, 21.3 percent as negative, 45.9 percent as neutral, 8.5 percent were undecided, and 1.6 percent said they didn’t know him.
The poll also showed that 41.3 percent of Ukrainians have positive attitudes toward German Chancellor Angela Merkel, 13.5 percent negative, 36.7 percent neutral, 6.9 percent were undecided, and 1.5 percent said they didn’t know her.
The poll of 3,000 respondents was conducted in 24 regions of Ukraine and Kyiv from April 30 to May 10.
