President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (L) meets with U.S. President Donald Trump (R) in Davos, Switzerland on January 23, 2026. (Photo by Ukrainian Presidency/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)The Kyiv Independent Opinion DeskThis week's letters come from readers writing about Ukraine — a Romanian journalist reporting from Kyiv on the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment, an American veteran on American support, and an investor questioning whether some foreign "investment" is being mistaken for genuine economic recovery. Got an opinion on anything you've read in the Kyiv Independent? Send it to letters@kyivindependent.com — your letter may appear in our Letters section.Eric Schmidt's Ukraine deal is a rounding error, not a recovery planThomas J Gallagher, United StatesEric and Wendy Schmidt's "investment" in existing Ukrainian commercial real estate is not as significant as it has been portrayed. Mr Schmidt's wealth is approximately one-tenth of the combined public and private wealth in Ukraine. As a proportion of his $60 billion fortune, this deal is comparable to someone worth $3 million buying a single $5,000 SUV in Poland, painting it, and shipping it to the front, while bringing no tourniquets, no Mavic-3s, just one beater Kia Sportage from a millionaire. By my estimation, thousands of his fellow Americans have donated far more of their wealth proportionally. More troubling, however, is what this coverage reveals about priorities. The last thing news outlets should be championing is real estate investment. Ukraine's banks are glorified card payment providers — they make virtually no loans to the private sector, instead collecting 15% interest from depositors to buy government debt at 20% or more. There are no functioning domestic equity capital markets. A Ukrainian with savings buys another property for cash, because there is nowhere else to put it productively. What Ukraine needs is not inflated land prices in Kyiv and Lviv — already overvalued on any income-stream analysis — but productive capital. Until that changes, neither Ukrainian businesses nor investors should expect their fortunes to improve.