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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This 12 months's Eurovision is surely essentially the most political in a very long time.

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

However this year’s event is political for other reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will signify Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s original choice.

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

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

Kalush Orchestra, a folk rap group from Western Ukraine, acquired their probability as an alternative.

Dressed in traditional outfits and drawing on the country’s long but repressed musical traditions, they are an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine just isn't an actual nation - however merely a "little Russia", a area that wants reintegration.

Tonight, when the Kalash Orchestra take to the stage, they will 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 conflict predicated on the concept that this nation had no national identity, no foundational myths, no nationwide heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine extra with every passing day.