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Three years in the making, an agreement signed last week in Beijing for China to finance and build bridges, highways and railways in Ukraine represents a big step up for China’s commitment to Ukraine, Chinese analysts tell the South China Morning Post. “Ukraine can only embrace China more since both the EU and NATO have not shown much interest in Ukraine joining for now,” said Li Lifan, a senior fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. “China aims to have more high-quality overseas investment projects in this first year of the five-year plan, while Ukraine needs more infrastructure investment to support its economic development as well as the Chinese market to export its food.”
2.6 Polls & Sociology
Most Ukrainians (65.2%) would support the ban on the sale of agricultural land in Ukraine, while 84.1% of respondents do not support the sale of land to foreigners, the results of the latest poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology on June 22-29 suggest. 71.7% want a referendum on banning the sale of agricultural land, with 21% opposing it. Another 7.2% were undecided or refused to answer.
A poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on June 22-29 found that 52.7% of Ukrainians disapprove of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s actions. Only 34.1% of respondents approved of the president’s actions, while 13.2% were indecisive or declined to answer. The poll did not specify which actions were under discussion. The results signal the continuation of a year-long negative trend in Zelenskiy’s approval ratings. In a June 2020 KIIS poll of 2,000 respondents, 45% disapproved of Zelenskiy’s actions, while 38% expressed approval.
15 UKRAINE Country Report August 2021 www.intellinews.com