According to Experts Club, Ukrainians’ attitudes toward Algeria in August 2026 remain predominantly neutral—65.8% of respondents hold this view. At the same time, compared to March, the share of positive assessments has increased significantly—to 14.3%, while negative assessments have risen to 12.2%, reports the Experts Club Information and Analytical Center.
According to the results of the August survey, 3.1% of Ukrainians have a completely positive attitude toward Algeria, while 11.2% have a mostly positive attitude. 65.8% of respondents chose a neutral response. 10.2% expressed a mostly negative attitude, 2% a completely negative one, and another 7.8% were undecided.
Based on rounded figures, the balance between positive and negative assessments stands at approximately plus 2.1 percentage points. Thus, positive assessments only slightly outweigh negative ones, and the main characteristic of perceptions of Algeria remains the high proportion of neutral responses.
In March 2026, public opinion was even less defined. At that time, 74.1% of respondents had a neutral attitude toward Algeria. The overall positive rating in the survey was 9.3%, the negative rating was 9.1%, and 7.5% of respondents were undecided.
Thus, over the course of five months, the share of positive assessments increased by approximately 5 percentage points—to 14.3%—while the share of negative assessments rose by 3.1 percentage points, to 12.2%. The most notable change was the decline in the neutral segment—by 8.3 percentage points, from 74.1% to 65.8%. At the same time, the balance of attitudes rose from approximately plus 0.2 percentage points to plus 2.1 percentage points.
This trend indicates the gradual formation of a more defined attitude toward Algeria: some respondents who previously held a neutral position have shifted to either the positive or negative segments. At the same time, nearly two-thirds of Ukrainians still do not express a clear emotional assessment of the country.
Algeria is one of Ukraine’s trading partners with which it maintains a significant trade surplus. In the first half of 2026, Ukrainian exports to Algeria totaled approximately $388.6 million, imports amounted to $79.3 million, and the trade surplus was about $309.2 million. Agricultural products form the bulk of Ukrainian exports to this market.
Maksym Urakin, founder of the Experts Club information and analytical center and a candidate of economic sciences, has previously drawn attention to the gap between the general public’s limited awareness of Algeria and the actual economic interaction between the two countries.
“Despite relatively weak public interest, Ukraine and Algeria have a significant level of trade interaction. In 2025, bilateral trade exceeded $401 million,” Urakin noted.
He also emphasized that the significant surplus of Ukrainian exports over imports creates an economic foundation for the further development of bilateral relations.
The latest wave of the study shows that public perception of Algeria is gradually becoming more defined, but so far lags significantly behind the country’s actual economic role. Despite a trade surplus favorable to Ukraine, nearly 66% of respondents continue to view Algeria neutrally.
The previous survey was conducted in March 2026 among 800 Ukrainian citizens aged 18 and older using self-administered online questionnaires on the SunFlowerSociology panel. The sample was representative by age, gender, and region; the maximum theoretical margin of error for indicators at the 50% confidence level was ±3.5 percentage points.
ACTIVE GROUP, ALGERIA, EXPERTS CLUB, FOREIGN TRADE, international relations, NORTH AFRICA, PUBLIC OPINION, SOCIOLOGY, UKRAINE
According to the Serbian business media outlet Parametar, Serbia has seen a noticeable increase in the influx of Ukrainian citizens since April 2026. According to data cited by Radosh Džurović, director of the Center for the Protection and Assistance of Asylum Seekers, in an interview with RTS, approximately 70,000 people from Ukraine had entered Serbia by September. These figures reflect entry and exit statistics, not the number of people currently in the country.
According to Džurović, a significant change is that an increasing number of Ukrainians are not using Serbia merely as a transit country but are staying, renting housing, and seeking employment and educational opportunities. Most live in the private sector and do not use state-run accommodation centers.
Among those arriving, he said, are many people from the Kharkiv and Odesa regions, as well as from central Ukraine.
At the same time, official statistics on temporary protection are significantly lower than the total number of entries. Back in March 2026, the Center for the Protection and Assistance of Asylum Seekers reported that 1,253 Ukrainian citizens officially had temporary protection in Serbia. From the start of the full-scale war through January 2026, more than 744,000 Ukrainians entered Serbia, but most continued on their way.
This indicates that the current trend differs from previous years: some Ukrainian citizens are beginning to view Serbia not only as a transit route but also as a place for longer-term residence.
Džurović warns that if the situation in Ukraine continues to deteriorate, Serbia may face a new surge in arrivals and the need to expand its capacity to accommodate them.
Huawei Ukraine has announced the launch of the nationwide Student Tech Challenge 2026 team competition for students majoring in technical disciplines. This year, 152 students representing 42 teams from 18 Ukrainian universities will take part in the competition.
The official opening of the competition took place online on October 6. The participants were addressed by Ma Mingjie, Director of Huawei Ukraine, Roksolana Shvadchak, Director General of the Digital Transformation Directorate of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, as well as the heads of Ukrainian technical universities.
In 2026, the teams will work in three areas: Radio Access Network Planning, Datacom Engineering, and Digital Energy. Participants are required to develop solutions to practical challenges in mobile network planning, data transmission, network technologies, and digital energy.
Work on the projects will be carried out with the support of team coaches and Huawei Ukraine mentors.
“Huawei Ukraine consistently invests in the education of Ukrainian youth. We strive to inspire students to study even harder, gain deeper insight into real business cases, and build careers in their chosen professional fields. In this way, they will directly strengthen Ukraine’s ICT industry,” said Ma Mingjie, Director of Huawei Ukraine.
Student Tech Challenge is being held for the third consecutive year. In 2024, the competition involved 134 students in 32 teams from 10 universities, while in 2025, it brought together 201 students, 48 teams from 20 universities. In 2026, the number of competition categories has been reduced from four to three, with 42 teams from 18 higher education institutions joining the project.
Anatolii Melnychenko, Rector of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, emphasized the importance of closer ties between university education and the real needs of the technology industry. According to him, such initiatives enable students not only to acquire academic knowledge but also to apply it to solving engineering challenges and gain practical teamwork experience.
The competition will run from October 6 to November 6. The semifinal selection will take place on October 26–27, and on November 4–5, the teams will present their projects to an independent expert jury. The final ceremony and awards presentation will take place in Kyiv on November 6.
The winners will receive prizes, as well as an opportunity to participate in a Huawei mentoring or internship program.
Student Tech Challenge is a nationwide technology competition organized by Huawei Ukraine for students majoring in technical disciplines, with the support of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. Participants develop solutions to practical challenges in telecommunications, network technologies, and energy under the guidance of company experts.
According to Experts.news, Ukraine’s rolled steel market shrank by 13.79% in January–September 2026 compared to the same period last year—to 2.728 million metric tons, according to data from the Ukrmetallurgprom association.
At the same time, the domestic market’s dependence on imported products has increased significantly. Over the nine-month period, Ukraine imported 1.276 million metric tons of rolled steel, accounting for 46.78% of domestic consumption.
A year earlier, the Ukrainian market totaled 3.1645 million metric tons, while imports amounted to 1.2395 million metric tons, or 39.17%. Thus, despite a decline in overall demand, the share of imported rolled metal products increased by 7.61 percentage points over the year.
In fact, nearly every other metric ton of rolled steel consumed in Ukraine’s domestic market from January through September 2026 was imported.
During this period, Ukrainian steelmakers produced 3.729 million metric tons of rolled steel, representing 77% of the January–September 2025 figure.
This decline in domestic consumption follows a significant market recovery last year. By the end of 2025, the rolled steel market had grown by 21.73% to 4.002 million metric tons, with imports accounting for 40.07% of the total.
For comparison: in 2024, the Ukrainian rolled steel market totaled 3.288 million metric tons, and in 2023—3.506 million metric tons.
Source: “Ukrmetallurgprom,” State Customs Service of Ukraine.
Germany remains one of the countries with a high level of positive perception among Ukrainians; however, in August 2026, this figure dropped significantly compared to the previous survey wave. According to the results of a survey by Active Group and Experts Club, 69.9% of respondents have a positive attitude toward Germany, while 5.5% have a negative one, reports the Experts Club Information and Analytical Center.
According to the August survey, 26.8% of Ukrainians view Germany entirely positively, and 43.1% view it mostly positively. A neutral stance was held by 23.5% of respondents. A mostly negative attitude was expressed by 4.9%, a completely negative one by 0.6%, and another 1.2% were undecided.
The balance of positive and negative assessments stands at plus 64.4 percentage points. This keeps Germany among the countries with a distinctly positive perception, although the figure is lower compared to previous surveys. In August 2026, Germany ranked behind France and the Netherlands among Western European countries in terms of the share of positive attitudes.
In March 2026, 77.4% of respondents viewed Germany positively: 32.9% viewed it entirely positively and 44.5% viewed it mostly positively. Negative assessments accounted for only 3.5%, while 18.4% of respondents chose a neutral response.
Thus, over the course of five months, the share of positive assessments decreased by 7.5 percentage points—from 77.4% to 69.9%—while negative assessments increased by 2 percentage points—from 3.5% to 5.5%—and neutral assessments rose by approximately 5.1 percentage points. The balance between positive and negative assessments fell from 73.9 to 64.4 percentage points. However, positive attitudes still outnumber negative ones by nearly 13 to 1.
At the same time, Germany remains one of Ukraine’s largest trading partners. In the first half of 2026, Ukrainian exports to Germany totaled approximately $1.267 billion, imports amounted to $3.208 billion, and total trade volume reached about $4.48 billion. The trade deficit for Ukraine amounted to approximately $1.94 billion. Ukraine’s main exports included cable products, rapeseed, furniture, soybeans, and metal pipes, while imports from Germany consisted of automobiles, pharmaceuticals, petroleum products, and agricultural machinery.
Oleksandr Pozniy, director of the research firm Active Group, commenting on Ukrainians’ high regard for Germany in the previous wave of the survey, attributed it to a combination of factors that go beyond purely economic relations.
“Germany is viewed as a strategic ally in the political and security spheres. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees have found shelter there, and large-scale financial and military aid plays a key role in the resilience of our state. The combination of these factors explains why more than three-quarters of Ukrainians view Germany positively and why this country remains among the undisputed leaders in terms of trust within our society,” Pozniy noted.
The new wave of the survey shows that the level of positive attitudes toward Germany has declined compared to the spring, but there has been no fundamental change in the structure of public opinions: positive responses continue to significantly outnumber negative ones, and the main increase occurred not in the category of negative attitudes but in that of neutral ones.
The survey was conducted in August 2026 using an online self-administered questionnaire via the SunFlowerSociology panel among 800 Ukrainian citizens aged 18 and older. The sample is representative by age, gender, and region; the maximum theoretical margin of error for indicators at the 50% confidence level is ±3.5 percentage points.
ACTIVE GROUP, EXPERTS CLUB, FOREIGN TRADE, GERMANY, international relations, Pozniy, PUBLIC OPINION, SOCIOLOGY, UKRAINE
Ukrainian steelmakers reduced pig iron production by 22.9% in January–September of this year compared to the same period last year, down to 4.463 million metric tons.
According to information released Friday by the “Ukrmetallurgprom” association, 113,000 metric tons of pig iron were produced in September, 257,100 metric tons in August, 432,200 metric tons in July, 670,600 metric tons in June, in May—634,400 metric tons, in April—554,000 metric tons, in March—690,200 metric tons, in February—561,900 metric tons, and in January—549,900 metric tons.
In 2025, Ukraine’s steel companies increased pig iron production by 11.2% compared to 2024, reaching 7.884 million metric tons.
In 2024, Ukraine increased pig iron production by 18.1% compared to 2023, reaching 7.090 million metric tons. In 2023, pig iron production fell by 6.1% to 6.003 million metric tons, and in 2022, it fell by 69.8% to 6.391 million metric tons.
In 2021, before the war, 21.165 million metric tons of pig iron were produced, or 103.6% of the 2020 level.
