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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

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

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

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

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 people rap group from Western Ukraine, obtained their likelihood instead.

Dressed in traditional outfits and drawing on the nation’s long however repressed musical traditions, they are an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine is just not an actual nation - but 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 assured in itself.

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

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