Ukraine battle latest: Russians pushed back 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 general sense of solidarity round the rest of the continent.

However this yr’s event is political for different reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will symbolize Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s authentic 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 folks rap group from Western Ukraine, bought their chance as an alternative.

Wearing traditional outfits and drawing on the nation’s lengthy however repressed musical traditions, they're an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine is just not an actual country - but 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 is increasingly assured 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 withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine more with each passing day.