Ukraine warfare latest: Russians pushed again far out of Kharkiv – City mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This year's Eurovision is unquestionably probably the most political in a 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.

But this yr’s occasion is political for different reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will characterize Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s unique alternative.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former actuality show 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, received their probability as an alternative.

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 wants reintegration.

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

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

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