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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

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

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

However this 12 months’s event is political for different causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which can symbolize Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s original 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 people rap group from Western Ukraine, bought their chance as an alternative.

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

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

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

A warfare 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.