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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This year's Eurovision is surely 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 remainder of the continent.

However this year’s event is political for different causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will characterize Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s unique alternative.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former reality present 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, acquired their likelihood as a substitute.

Wearing traditional outfits and drawing on the country’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 nation - however merely a "little Russia", a region 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, on the heart of president Putin’s invasion.

A conflict 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 more with every passing day.