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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This year's Eurovision is unquestionably essentially 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.

But this year’s event is political for other causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will characterize Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s unique alternative.

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

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

Kalush Orchestra, a people rap group from Western Ukraine, got their probability as a substitute.

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

Tonight, when the Kalash Orchestra take to the stage, they are going to be representing a nation that is more and more confident in itself.

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

A battle predicated on the idea that this nation had no national identification, no foundational myths, no national heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine extra with every passing day.