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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

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

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

But this yr’s event is political for different 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 reality show contestant.

However 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 chance as a substitute.

Wearing 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 is just not an actual country - 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's increasingly confident in itself.

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

A war predicated on the idea that this nation had no nationwide identity, no foundational myths, no national heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine extra with every passing day.