Ukraine conflict latest: Russians pushed back far out of Kharkiv – Metropolis mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This 12 months's Eurovision is surely essentially 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 around the rest of the continent.

However this year’s event is political for different causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will represent 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 folks rap group from Western Ukraine, got their probability as a substitute.

Wearing traditional outfits and drawing on the country’s lengthy however repressed musical traditions, they are an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine is not 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'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 country had no nationwide identity, no foundational myths, no nationwide heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine more with each passing day.