Ukraine battle latest: Russians pushed again far out of Kharkiv – Metropolis mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This year'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 common sense of solidarity round the rest of the continent.

But this yr’s event is political for other causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will symbolize Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s authentic selection.

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 folks rap group from Western Ukraine, received their probability as an alternative.

Wearing conventional 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 wants reintegration.

Tonight, when the Kalash Orchestra take to the stage, they are going to be representing a nation that is increasingly confident 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 idea that this country had no nationwide identification, no foundational myths, no national heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine more with every passing day.