Ukraine conflict latest: Russians pushed again far out of Kharkiv – City mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This 12 months's Eurovision is definitely essentially the most political in a long time.

Russia has been banned. Ukraine is the runaway favorite to win, buoyed by a common sense of solidarity around the rest of the continent.

But this year’s occasion is political for other reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which can represent Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s original choice.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former reality show contestant.

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

Kalush Orchestra, a people rap group from Western Ukraine, bought their likelihood as a substitute.

Dressed in traditional outfits and drawing on the country’s lengthy but repressed musical traditions, they're an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine is not a real nation - but merely a "little Russia", a region that needs reintegration.

Tonight, when the Kalash Orchestra take to the stage, they are going to be representing a nation that is more and more confident in itself.

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

A conflict predicated on the idea that this country had no national identity, no foundational myths, no nationwide heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine more with each passing day.