IT CLOCKED UP nearly 19m views in a week, and 150,000 comments from people in Russia and Ukraine, and from Russian-speakers across the world. It crossed front lines and cut through official narratives. On September 10th Alla Pugacheva, who has been, by far, Russia’s biggest pop star for 50 years, whose fame rivals Abba and Madonna and far outstrips that of Anna Netrebko, a Russian classical diva, gave her first big interview since she left Moscow in 2022. Her conscience, “more valuable than fame, luxury or anything else”, had become incompatible with staying on in Russia and keeping silent after the war began.