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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This yr's Eurovision is definitely the most political in a very long time.

Russia has been banned. Ukraine is the runaway favorite to win, buoyed by a basic sense of solidarity around the rest of the continent.

However this 12 months’s event is political for other causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will characterize Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s original selection.

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 folk rap group from Western Ukraine, received their chance as an alternative.

Dressed in conventional 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 just isn't an actual nation - but merely a "little Russia", a region that wants reintegration.

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

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

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