Ukraine war newest: Russians pushed back far out of Kharkiv – Metropolis mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

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

Russia has been banned. Ukraine is the runaway favourite to win, buoyed by a basic 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 is able to signify Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s authentic selection.

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 folks rap group from Western Ukraine, obtained their probability as a substitute.

Wearing traditional outfits and drawing on the nation’s lengthy but repressed musical traditions, they're an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine is just not a real 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's increasingly confident in itself.

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

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