The general public in Ukraine rated the reputation of its own country the lowest in Europe and the second lowest in the world. Such a finding showed the results of the specialized survey of the reputation of Ukraine in the G8 countries that was conducted by Reputation Capital Ukraine.

The results indicate that the level of trust to Ukraine in the G8 countries is quite low and it doesn’t correspond to the perception of these countries by the Ukrainians. For instance, the level of trust of the Ukrainians to Russia is 66,87 scores, meanwhile, the perception of the Russians of their neighbors doesn’t exceed 31 scores. Concerning the perception of the USA, this measure from the Ukrainian side is almost equal with the level of trust of the Americans to our country and is even quite low.

The low level of trust to Ukraine in other countries is closely associated with the way the very Ukrainians rate their own country – from the measured countries only the Japanese perceive their country worse than the Ukrainians do. The level of trust of the Ukrainians to their own country dropped by 19% in the past year. In general, we can state a negative tendency – rapid loss of trust to Ukraine both from its own citizens and the world community as well.

One of the key findings of the Ukraine’s reputation is the fact that the Ukrainians rate some aspects of their country’s reputation (lifestyle, business environment, social welfare) considerably lower than they are rated in the G8 countries. 

Internal and external reputations of a country are interconnected. As the results of the survey showed, the fall of the level of trust to a country on the international scene is accompanied with a sharp decrease of trust to the country from its citizens. The drop of trust to Ukraine on the international scene by 21% is accompanied by a rapid decrease of trust to their country among the Ukrainians – in comparison with 2008 by 19%. The data of the other countries show that it is impossible to create positive perception of a country in the world if its citizens don’t trust it and are not proud of their country.  

According to many components of country’s reputation (cultural, geographical, scientific-technical) the potential of Ukraine is underestimated both by the European community and the Ukrainians as well. The country has all possibilities to build a strong reputation platform that will create the necessary conditions for increasing the level of trust in case of active assistance of government and business.            

The first survey of the reputation of Ukraine in the G8 countries is initiated by Reputation Capital and is conducted within the international study CountryRep – 2009. The organizer of the annual global survey of countries’ reputation is Reputation Institute - a world’s leader in the field of reputation audit and consulting. In 2009 the survey was realized in 34 countries.

The results of the Ukraine’s reputation study in the countries G8 were released within the Reputation Days – 2009 that took place in Kyiv on November 26-27. The event gathered the representatives of the leading international and Ukrainian companies and the experts in the field of reputation management. The organizer of the annual forum devoted to the issues of managing reputation of companies and countries is Reputation Capital Ukraine, an official representative of Reputation Institute in Ukraine.