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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This year's Eurovision is definitely essentially 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.

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

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, got their probability as a substitute.

Wearing conventional outfits and drawing on the country’s lengthy however repressed musical traditions, they are an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine is not a real nation - but merely a "little Russia", a region that needs reintegration.

Tonight, when the Kalash Orchestra take to the stage, they will be representing a nation that is more and more confident 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 nationwide id, no foundational myths, no nationwide heroes, no will to resist, is what's uniting Ukraine extra with each passing day.