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 favourite to win, buoyed by a general sense of solidarity around the remainder of the continent.

However this 12 months’s event is political for other reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will signify 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 folk rap group from Western Ukraine, bought their chance instead.

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 will not be a real country - but 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 war predicated on the concept that this country had no nationwide id, no foundational myths, no nationwide heroes, no will to resist, is what's uniting Ukraine more with every passing day.