Survey on Europeans' Views of Ukraine

War, Russia, Poverty: Europeans ‘negative’ view of Ukraine

It was French writer Gustave Flaubert who said there is no truth, only perception. According to the Institute of World Policy in Kyiv, Europeans have a rather negative image of Ukraine.

In a recently released report war, Russia and poverty appear to be the three key words that average citizens of Europe’s most populous countries associate with the country.

The Orange revolution appears to be better known by the respondents than the Maidan protests which spun Ukraine towards Brussels, but European perceptions of Ukraine are beginning to change, if slowly, according to Olena Hetmanchuk, head of the Institute of World Policy.

“I don’t think that they (the Europeans) associate or consider Ukraine to be a part of Russia as they perceived some time ago. In my opinion, the association with Russia is primarily related to Russia’s aggression. That’s a logical association as this issue has been one of the main topics of European media for the last year.”

On the subject of Ukraine eventually joining the EU, the French are the most skeptical while, the British are largely indifferent.

In order for Ukraine to create a better image in these countries, political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko told euronews the country “needs to compensate for this with the successful implementation of reforms in the country; the promotion of Ukraine’s history that should be considered as a part of European history. That will increase the percentage of people who will perceive Ukraine as a part of Europe, not only geographically, but also politically and historically.” * **

It's actually somewhat surprising to me that they chose to headline this survey the way they did, given that the results they report overall paint a picture of a European populace very open to Ukraine joining the EU in the future, Russia be damned.  Of course, this is a report from an organisation whose 'vision is that Ukraine should be integrated into the EU and NATO', and the report itself was funded by the US government (USAID), so take it with a grain of salt if you will.

Oh, and as for this:

The survey will help to identify problems in the EU-Ukraine relations and to bring to light concerns of ordinary Europeans. These findings are strikingly important in terms of Russia's powerful efforts to sow division among European nations fracturing their unity with respect to Ukraine.

Europeans can make up their own minds thank you very much.  Kremlin propaganda be damned.  American propaganda be damned.  And what the fuck is this 'unity with respect to Ukraine' of which you speak ?  What unity ?  Since when ?


Anyways, it's an interesting survey, propaganda or not, and I do love me a nice word-cloud:

Almost thought they'd forgotten Yulia, but no, there she is.  They're still missing one important word though: IMF.


* In other words, erase the long history with Russia going all the way back to the Rus' ?

** Bolding mine.  Text from the EuroNews site is almost, but not exactly a transcript of the video.