Ukraine struggle latest: Russians pushed back far out of Kharkiv – Metropolis mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This 12 months's Eurovision is unquestionably the most political in a very long time.

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

But this year’s event is political for other reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which can signify Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s original alternative.

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, received their probability as an alternative.

Wearing conventional outfits and drawing on the country’s long but repressed musical traditions, they are an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine isn't a real country - 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 more and more assured in itself.

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

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