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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This yr's Eurovision is definitely probably the most political in a very long time.

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

However this 12 months’s occasion is political for other reasons 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.

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, bought their chance instead.

Wearing conventional outfits and drawing on the country’s long however repressed musical traditions, they're an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine is just not an actual nation - however 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 is more and more assured in itself.

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

A battle predicated on the concept that this nation had no national id, no foundational myths, no nationwide heroes, no will to resist, is what's uniting Ukraine extra with each passing day.