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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

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

Russia has been banned. Ukraine is the runaway favorite to win, buoyed by a basic sense of solidarity around the rest of the continent.

However this year’s occasion is political for different reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which can characterize Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s authentic choice.

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 folks rap group from Western Ukraine, got their chance as an alternative.

Wearing traditional 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 just isn't an actual country - but merely a "little Russia", a region that needs reintegration.

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

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

A conflict predicated on the concept that this nation had no nationwide id, no foundational myths, no nationwide heroes, no will to resist, is what's uniting Ukraine more with each passing day.