Ukraine warfare latest: Russians pushed back far out of Kharkiv – City 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 favourite to win, buoyed by a common sense of solidarity around the rest of the continent.

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

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, obtained their chance instead.

Dressed in traditional outfits and drawing on the country’s long however repressed musical traditions, they are an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine will not be an actual nation - however merely a "little Russia", a area that wants 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 heart of president Putin’s invasion.

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