Ukraine war newest: Russians pushed back far out of Kharkiv – Metropolis mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This year's Eurovision is unquestionably essentially the most political in a very long time.

Russia has been banned. Ukraine is the runaway favourite to win, buoyed by a normal sense of solidarity round the rest of the continent.

However this 12 months’s occasion is political for other causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will characterize Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s original alternative.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former actuality present contestant.

But when it was alleged she had visited occupied Crimea, she was dropped amid public outcry.

Kalush Orchestra, a folk rap group from Western Ukraine, received their chance as an alternative.

Wearing traditional outfits and drawing on the nation’s lengthy however repressed musical traditions, they're an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine isn't an actual country - but merely a "little Russia", a region that wants reintegration.

Tonight, when the Kalash Orchestra take to the stage, they will be representing a nation that's increasingly assured in itself.

And therein lies the irony, some would say strategic blunder, on the heart of president Putin’s invasion.

A warfare predicated on the idea that this nation had no national identification, no foundational myths, no nationwide heroes, no will to resist, is what's uniting Ukraine extra with every passing day.