Ukraine conflict latest: Russians pushed again far out of Kharkiv – Metropolis 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 basic sense of solidarity round the remainder of the continent.

But this 12 months’s event is political for other causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will signify Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s unique 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, acquired their probability as an alternative.

Dressed in conventional 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 a real country - however merely a "little Russia", a area that wants reintegration.

Tonight, when the Kalash Orchestra take to the stage, they are going to be representing a nation that's increasingly confident 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 concept that this nation had no national identity, no foundational myths, no national heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine more with every passing day.