Ukraine struggle newest: Russians pushed back far out of Kharkiv – City mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This year's Eurovision is definitely probably the most political in a very long time.

Russia has been banned. Ukraine is the runaway favourite to win, buoyed by a normal sense of solidarity round the remainder of the continent.

But this year’s occasion is political for different reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which is able to characterize Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s authentic choice.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former reality present 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, obtained their likelihood instead.

Dressed in traditional 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 will not be a real nation - however merely a "little Russia", a region that wants reintegration.

Tonight, when the Kalash Orchestra take to the stage, they will be representing a nation that's more and more confident in itself.

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

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