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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

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

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

However this yr’s event is political for other reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which is able to characterize Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s authentic choice.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former actuality present contestant.

But when it was alleged she had visited occupied Crimea, she was dropped amid public outcry.

Kalush Orchestra, a folk rap group from Western Ukraine, obtained their likelihood instead.

Wearing traditional 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 shouldn't be a real 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 increasingly confident in itself.

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

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