The Italian Med-Or Foundation and the Hennadiy Udovenko Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine have signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at developing cooperation in the field of diplomatic training and international dialogue.
According to reports, the document was signed on October 13 at Med-Or’s headquarters in Rome by the foundation’s president, Marco Minniti, and the director of the Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine, Ihor Ostash.
The agreement provides a foundation for joint initiatives in the field of diplomatic education, as well as expanded opportunities for cooperation between Italy and Ukraine. In particular, the agreement envisages the involvement of Italian and international instructors and experts in the Ukrainian academy’s educational programs.
The Med-Or Foundation already has experience in developing international partnerships in the field of personnel training in Africa and the Middle East.
The signing ceremony was also attended by Alfredo Mantovano, State Secretary to the President of the Council of Ministers of Italy and Security Commissioner of the Republic, and Ihor Brusylo, Ukraine’s Ambassador to Italy.
Med-Or noted that the agreement is part of the foundation’s broader program of activities aimed at developing international cooperation amid a complex international situation.
The signing of the memorandum lays the groundwork for further deepening Ukrainian-Italian ties in the areas of diplomatic education, the exchange of expert knowledge, and the training of specialists in international relations.
The Ukrainian insulated wire and cable manufacturing sector continues to be one of the industrial segments with a significant trade surplus.
In January–September 2026, Ukraine exported these products worth $1.065 billion, while imports totaled $540.7 million. Thus, the trade surplus reached approximately $524.3 million.
Exports exceeded imports by nearly two to one, which stands in stark contrast to the overall structure of Ukraine’s foreign trade, where imports of goods have significantly exceeded exports in recent years.
However, the trend indicates a gradual narrowing of this surplus.
Exports of wires and cables over the nine-month period remained virtually unchanged compared to last year, while imports rose by 22.7%. According to estimates, imports in January–September 2025 totaled about $441 million, and the trade surplus was approximately $624 million.
Thus, over the year, the trade surplus in wires and cables decreased by approximately $100 million, or 16%.
The European Union remains Ukraine’s main export market. Germany, Poland, and Hungary alone purchased nearly $698 million worth of Ukrainian products, accounting for about two-thirds of total exports.
At the same time, the structure of imports is becoming more Asian-oriented. China increased its shipments by approximately 70%—to $157 million—and took first place among suppliers, ahead of Hungary and Poland.
As a result, a dual trend is emerging: Ukraine continues to be a major supplier of cable products to European industry, but at the same time is rapidly increasing its purchases of certain types of wires, cables, and electrical components from abroad.
By the end of 2025, exports of cable products totaled $1.41 billion, while imports amounted to $590.7 million, meaning the annual surplus exceeded $819 million.
The sustained significant trade surplus makes the production of wires and cables one of the most interesting examples of the Ukrainian manufacturing industry, which is deeply integrated into European production chains. That said, future trends will depend on the state of the European automotive industry, energy infrastructure development, and the ability of Ukrainian companies to maintain production amid the war.
Source: State Customs Service of Ukraine, foreign trade statistics for January–September 2026.
State Customs Service Statistics
In August 2026, Ukrainians’ attitudes toward Uzbekistan remain predominantly neutral: 55.6% of respondents hold this view. Taking these categories together, 25.7% of those surveyed view the country positively, while 14.5% view it negatively, according to the Experts Club Information and Analytical Center. In the summary report, the positive figure is listed as 25.6%, which is due to the rounding of the raw data.
6.5% of Ukrainians have a completely positive attitude toward Uzbekistan, while 19.2% have a mostly positive attitude. 55.6% of respondents chose a neutral response. 13.1% view the country mostly negatively, 1.4% completely negatively, and another 4.3% were undecided.
When the categories are combined, the balance between positive and negative attitudes is +11.2 percentage points. Positive assessments thus outnumber negative ones by approximately 1.8 times. At the same time, more than half of those surveyed do not express a strong positive or negative stance toward the country.
In the overall regional picture, Uzbekistan has a less pronounced positive image than Georgia and Azerbaijan. In August, positive assessments stood at 57.3% for Georgia and 48.7% for Azerbaijan, while a high proportion of neutral responses remains the key feature of perceptions toward Uzbekistan.
At the same time, compared to the April 2025 survey, attitudes have become more defined. At that time, 63.4% of Ukrainians held a neutral stance toward Uzbekistan, 21.7% had a positive view, 9.3% had a negative view, and 5.6% were undecided. Thus, the positive segment grew by approximately 4 percentage points, the negative segment by 5.2 percentage points, and the share of neutral responses decreased by 7.8 percentage points.
Maksym Urakin, founder of the Experts Club Information and Analytical Center and a candidate of economic sciences, believes that a key factor in how Uzbekistan is perceived remains Ukrainians’ lack of awareness about the country’s current role in Central Asia.
“For a significant portion of Ukrainian society, Uzbekistan remains a rather distant country. People are exposed to far less information about its economy, business, politics, or humanitarian ties than they are about EU countries, the Caucasus, or Ukraine’s immediate neighbors. That is precisely why the neutral group still accounts for more than half of the respondents,” Urakin noted.
At the same time, he said, the decline in the share of neutral responses—from 63.4% in April 2025 to 55.6% in August 2026—is a more significant signal than the individual increase in positive or negative assessments.
“We are seeing the gradual formation of a more defined image of Uzbekistan. Some respondents are shifting from a neutral stance to a specific assessment of the country. At the same time, positive attitudes still significantly outweigh negative ones. This means that there is a sufficiently favorable foundation for the development of economic, educational, cultural, and humanitarian ties, but the image of Uzbekistan in Ukraine still requires a greater informational presence,” Urakin added.
The current results partially confirm this assessment: the neutral group remains the largest, but it has shrunk significantly compared to 2025. The simultaneous increase in both positive and negative responses indicates, above all, the gradual formation of a more defined attitude toward Uzbekistan.
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, Central Asia, EXPERTS CLUB, international relations, PUBLIC OPINION, SOCIOLOGY, UKRAINE, URAKIN, UZBEKISTAN
In January–September 2026, Ukraine increased its imports of insulated wires and cables by 22.7%—to $540.7 million, with China significantly outpacing traditional European suppliers in this segment for the first time.
According to the State Customs Service, imports of Chinese cable products reached $157 million, compared to $92.6 million during the same period last year.
Thus, in just one year, shipments from China grew by approximately 69.5%, and its share of Ukraine’s wire and cable imports approached 29%.
Hungary remains the second-largest supplier. Over the nine-month period, Ukraine imported $124 million worth of wires and cables from Hungary, compared to $114 million a year earlier, representing an increase of approximately 8.8%.
Poland ranked third with shipments totaling $74 million, compared to $74.7 million in January–September 2025.
Thus, China, Hungary, and Poland together accounted for about $355 million, or nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian imports of cable products.
The main change in the market structure was the strengthening of China’s position. Just a year ago, Hungary was the largest supplier, whereas now the value of Chinese imports exceeds that of Hungary’s by approximately $33 million.
The rapid growth in imports may be linked to increased demand for electrical products, the restoration of energy infrastructure, telecommunications projects, construction, industrial equipment, and automotive components.
At the same time, imports are growing significantly faster than exports. Over the first nine months, Ukrainian exports of wires and cables remained roughly at last year’s level—$1.065 billion—while imports rose by nearly a quarter.
By the end of 2025, Ukraine had imported $590.7 million worth of wires and cables, which was 24.3% higher than in 2024. In just the first nine months of 2026, the volume of imports had already approached the total for the entire previous year.
According to Experts Club, Lithuania continues to enjoy one of the highest levels of positive perception among Ukrainians: in August 2026, 69.9% of respondents viewed the country positively, while only 3.9% viewed it negatively. At the same time, compared to the previous wave of the survey, the share of positive assessments has decreased, while the share of neutral assessments has increased, reports the Experts Club Information and Analytical Center.
According to the results of the August survey, 37.8% of Ukrainians view Lithuania entirely positively, and 32.1% view it mostly positively. A neutral stance is held by 24.5% of respondents. 3.1% view the country mostly negatively, 0.8% view it entirely negatively, and another 1.8% were undecided.
Based on the rounded figures in the table, the balance between positive and negative assessments is approximately plus 66 percentage points. This means that positive assessments of Lithuania outnumber negative ones by nearly 18 times. The country remains among those with the most favorable public perception among Ukrainians.
Compared to March 2026, the positive attitude has weakened somewhat. At that time, 44.1% of respondents rated Lithuania entirely positively, and another 31% rated it mostly positively, meaning the combined positive rating stood at 75.1%. Twenty-one percent of respondents had a neutral attitude toward the country, while about 3.3% had a negative one.
Thus, over the course of five months, the share of positive assessments decreased by 5.2 percentage points—from 75.1% to 69.9%. The share of neutral responses increased by 3.5 percentage points—from 21% to 24.5%—while the negative segment grew by only about 0.6 percentage points. Consequently, the decline in the positive rating was primarily due to some respondents shifting to a neutral position, rather than a sharp rise in negative attitudes.
The change in the intensity of positive assessments is also significant. The share of respondents with a completely positive attitude fell from 44.1% in March to 37.8% in August, while the share of mostly positive responses actually rose slightly—from 31% to 32.1%. This indicates a certain softening of assessments while maintaining an overall favorable image of Lithuania.
Oleksandr Pozniy, director of the research company Active Group, previously linked the high ratings of European countries to how Ukrainians perceive their support.
“This study confirms the general trend in public sentiment in Ukraine, which has intensified since the start of the full-scale war. Ukrainians clearly associate the support received primarily from European Union countries and the United Kingdom with a positive attitude toward them,” Pozniy noted.
At the same time, commenting on the structure of the responses in the survey, he emphasized: “For Ukrainians, the world is not ‘black and white,’ and the large proportion of neutral assessments regarding a number of countries indicates caution and a desire for balanced judgment rather than indifference.”
The latest round of the survey shows that, in the case of Lithuania, this trend is reflected in an increase in the neutral segment, while negative assessments remain at a very low level. Despite a decline compared to March, approximately seven out of ten Ukrainians continue to view the country positively.
The survey was conducted in August 2026 using self-administered online questionnaires in the SunFlowerSociology panel among 800 Ukrainian citizens aged 18 and older. The previous survey in March also included 800 respondents; the sample was representative by age, gender, and region, and the maximum theoretical margin of error for indicators at the 50% confidence level was ±3.5 percentage points.
ACTIVE GROUP, EUROPEAN UNION, EXPERTS CLUB, international relations, LITHUANIA, PUBLIC OPINION, SOCIOLOGY, THE BALTIC STATES, UKRAINE
From January through September 2026, Ukraine exported insulated wires and cables, including fiber-optic products, worth $1.065 billion, maintaining shipment volumes at virtually the same level as the same period last year.
According to data from the State Customs Service, Germany remains the largest market for Ukrainian cable products. Over the nine-month period, shipments to this country totaled $348.7 million, down 2.8% compared to January–September 2025.
Germany’s share of Ukraine’s total exports of wires and cables decreased by approximately 1 percentage point—to 32.7%—but the country continues to account for nearly one-third of the industry’s total export revenue.
Poland ranks second, with Ukraine supplying $177.1 million worth of products, compared to $168.1 million a year earlier. Thus, exports to Poland increased by approximately 5.4%.
Hungary retained its third position with purchases totaling about $172 million, virtually unchanged from last year’s figure of $172.3 million.
The three largest European markets—Germany, Poland, and Hungary—accounted for a total of nearly $698 million in January–September, or about 65.5% of Ukraine’s total exports of wires and cables.
In September, exports of these products totaled $122.7 million. Compared to September of last year, this figure decreased by 6.6%, but compared to August 2026, it increased by 26%.
The cable industry remains one of the most prominent export-oriented segments of Ukraine’s machine-building and component manufacturing sectors. A significant portion of the products is supplied to companies in the European automotive, electrical engineering, and industrial sectors.
For the full year 2025, Ukraine increased its exports of insulated wires and cables by 10.6%—to $1.41 billion. If shipment rates in the fourth quarter remain close to last year’s levels, the annual export volume in 2026 may also remain at around $1.4 billion.
