Ukraine warfare latest: 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 favorite to win, buoyed by a normal sense of solidarity round the remainder of the continent.

However this 12 months’s event is political for other reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which can symbolize Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s unique selection.

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 folk rap group from Western Ukraine, bought their probability instead.

Wearing conventional outfits and drawing on the country’s long but repressed musical traditions, they're an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine shouldn't be an actual country - 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 is increasingly confident in itself.

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

A battle predicated on the idea that this country had no national identity, no foundational myths, no national heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine extra with every passing day.