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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

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

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

However this yr’s occasion is political for other causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will characterize Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’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, acquired their chance as a substitute.

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 - but merely a "little Russia", a area that needs reintegration.

Tonight, when the Kalash Orchestra take to the stage, they are going to be representing a nation that's more and more 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 idea that this country had no national id, no foundational myths, no nationwide heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine extra with each passing day.