Ukraine warfare latest: Russians pushed back far out of Kharkiv – Metropolis mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

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

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

However this year’s occasion is political for different causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will symbolize Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s original alternative.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former reality 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, got their likelihood as a substitute.

Wearing traditional 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 isn't a real country - but 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, at the coronary heart of president Putin’s invasion.

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