Pussy Riot's 2012 "Punk Prayer" was a global flashpoint - a defining test of free expression in Putin’s Russia.

When co-founding member Masha Alyokhina was arrested, she told her son she would be back the next day. She was gone for two years.

In 2022, she fled the motherland, but continues to fight Putin from afar.

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This winter, Ai Weiwei returned to Beijing after a decade in exile. He found himself airbrushed from public memory. An international icon everywhere else. At home, a ghost.

The artist joined Michael Prodger soon after that trip to discuss the cost of personal freedom, in both China and in the West.

The Exchange is a new series from the New Statesman. Look out for new interviews every Wednesday.

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In his 30s, Rutger Bregman, the Dutch historian, had what he described as “an early midlife crisis”.

After a decade spent as a pundit, commenting on the global state of politics and economics, as well as publishing optimistic titles such as Utopia for Realists and Humankind: A Hopeful History - Bregman felt stuck. Something had to change.

And if he wanted to see that change in the world, he needed to make that change in himself.

In January he joined Oli Dugmore for an extended interview, delving into the prospects of a moral life, how morality has changed history, and how it could serve our current moment.

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