Ukraine battle latest: Russians pushed again far out of Kharkiv – City mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

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

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

But this 12 months’s occasion is political for different reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which is able to symbolize Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s unique alternative.

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, received their probability as an alternative.

Dressed in traditional outfits and drawing on the nation’s long however repressed musical traditions, they're an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine isn't a real nation - but merely a "little Russia", a area 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 nationwide identification, no foundational myths, no nationwide heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine more with each passing day.