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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

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

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

However this yr’s occasion is political for different causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which can signify Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s authentic selection.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former actuality 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, got their chance as a substitute.

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

Tonight, when the Kalash Orchestra take to the stage, they are going to be representing a nation that is increasingly assured in itself.

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

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