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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This yr's Eurovision is unquestionably the most political in a long time.

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

But this year’s event is political for other causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which is able to characterize Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s original alternative.

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

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

Kalush Orchestra, a folks rap group from Western Ukraine, obtained their probability instead.

Wearing conventional outfits and drawing on the nation’s long but repressed musical traditions, they're an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine just isn't an actual country - 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 increasingly confident 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 concept that this nation had no nationwide identification, no foundational myths, no national heroes, no will to resist, is what's uniting Ukraine extra with each passing day.