Ukraine warfare 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 normal sense of solidarity around the remainder of the continent.

However this 12 months’s occasion is political for different reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will represent Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s authentic choice.

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

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

Kalush Orchestra, a folks rap group from Western Ukraine, bought their chance as an alternative.

Dressed in traditional outfits and drawing on the nation’s long but repressed musical traditions, they're 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 needs reintegration.

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

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

A conflict predicated on the concept that this nation had no national identity, no foundational myths, no national heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine extra with each passing day.