Ukraine conflict newest: Russians pushed again far out of Kharkiv – City mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This 12 months'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 rest of the continent.

But this 12 months’s occasion is political for different reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which can symbolize Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s unique alternative.

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 folks rap group from Western Ukraine, bought their chance instead.

Dressed in conventional outfits and drawing on the country’s lengthy but repressed musical traditions, they are an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine is just not an actual country - but merely a "little Russia", a region that needs 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 nationwide identity, no foundational myths, no nationwide heroes, no will to resist, is what's uniting Ukraine extra with each passing day.