Ukraine battle latest: Russians pushed back far out of Kharkiv – Metropolis mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

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

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

However this yr’s occasion is political for different causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will characterize Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s original choice.

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 people rap group from Western Ukraine, bought their chance as a substitute.

Wearing traditional 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 just not an actual nation - however merely a "little Russia", a area that wants reintegration.

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

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

A battle predicated on the idea that this country had no national identification, no foundational myths, no national heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine more with each passing day.