You need more friends who aren't like you

ON A RECENT French language immersion course in Nice, I got to know one of my classmates, an academic from Russia.

- EVA M. MEYERSSON MILGROM

SUSAN HOFFMAN CHINESE AMERICAN Lions Club of O.C. members volunteer at the Miracle For Kids gift event.

On the final day of class, I gathered the courage to bring up the war between Russia and Ukraine. This conflict is deeply personal for me. Though I am a Swedish American based in the U.S., my family originates from Lviv, Ukraine, and I follow every development closely. I asked my classmate why she thought the war began and how both countries could bring it to an end.

She responded in a way that I could not have imagined. She spoke about her father’s closeness to senior figures in the Wagner group, the Russian paramilitary group that includes former convicts and has been designated as a terrorist group. In her view, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was responsible for the conflict by failing to keep his promises to Russia, leaving Russian President Vladimir Putin with no choice but to launch a “limited, special operation” to invade Ukraine. This was her description of a war that has lasted almost four years and resulted in a million Russian soldier casualties, according to a CNN report from last summer.

The conversation left me completely chilled. How could this intelligent, funny, kind woman who had become my friend believe that a bloody war that had caused so much suffering on both sides should be allowed to continue? How could she hold beliefs that were so radically different from my own?