Ukraine warfare newest: Russians pushed back far out of Kharkiv – City mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

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

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

However this yr’s occasion is political for other reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which is able to represent Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s original selection.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former actuality present 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 an alternative.

Wearing traditional outfits and drawing on the country’s long but repressed musical traditions, they're an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine shouldn't be a real nation - but merely a "little Russia", a area that wants reintegration.

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

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

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