Ukraine battle newest: Russians pushed again 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 common sense of solidarity round the rest of the continent.

However this yr’s event is political for other reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will symbolize Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s original alternative.

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 folks rap group from Western Ukraine, acquired their probability instead.

Dressed in 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 isn't a real 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 is more and more 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 idea that this country had no national id, no foundational myths, no national heroes, no will to resist, is what's uniting Ukraine extra with each passing day.