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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

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

Russia has been banned. Ukraine is the runaway favourite to win, buoyed by a basic sense of solidarity around the remainder of the continent.

But this 12 months’s occasion is political for different reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which is able to symbolize Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s original choice.

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

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

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

Dressed in traditional outfits and drawing on the nation’s long however repressed musical traditions, they're an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine shouldn't be an actual country - however 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 increasingly assured in itself.

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

A struggle predicated on the concept that this country had no nationwide id, no foundational myths, no nationwide heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine more with every passing day.