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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This 12 months'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 normal sense of solidarity around the rest of the continent.

But this yr’s event is political for other reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which is able to signify Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s original alternative.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former actuality 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, acquired their chance as an alternative.

Wearing traditional outfits and drawing on the country’s lengthy but repressed musical traditions, they're an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine will not be an actual 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's more and more assured in itself.

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

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