Ukraine struggle latest: Russians pushed again far out of Kharkiv – Metropolis mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This year's Eurovision is surely the most political in a very long time.

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

However this year’s occasion is political for other reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which is able to symbolize Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s authentic selection.

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, bought their chance as a substitute.

Dressed in conventional outfits and drawing on the nation’s long but repressed musical traditions, they are an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine is just not an actual nation - but merely a "little Russia", a area that needs reintegration.

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

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

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