Ukraine war newest: Russians pushed again far out of Kharkiv – City mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This year's Eurovision is surely the most political in a long time.

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

But this yr’s occasion is political for different causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which is able to symbolize Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s authentic choice.

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

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

Kalush Orchestra, a folks rap group from Western Ukraine, acquired their likelihood as a substitute.

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 just isn't an actual country - however merely a "little Russia", a area that needs reintegration.

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

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

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