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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This year's Eurovision is surely 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 remainder of the continent.

However this 12 months’s event is political for different reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which can signify Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s unique selection.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former reality show 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 likelihood as a substitute.

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 is just not 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 is increasingly confident in itself.

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

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