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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This year's Eurovision is surely essentially the most political in a long time.

Russia has been banned. Ukraine is the runaway favourite to win, buoyed by a general sense of solidarity around the rest of the continent.

However this yr’s occasion is political for different causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which is able to characterize Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s original selection.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former reality show contestant.

However when it was alleged she had visited occupied Crimea, she was dropped amid public outcry.

Kalush Orchestra, a people rap group from Western Ukraine, received their chance as a substitute.

Dressed in conventional outfits and drawing on the country’s long but repressed musical traditions, they are an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine shouldn't be an actual nation - however 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's more and more assured in itself.

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

A warfare predicated on the concept that this nation had no nationwide identification, no foundational myths, no national heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine more with each passing day.