Ukraine war newest: Russians pushed back far out of Kharkiv – Metropolis mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

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

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

However this year’s event is political for different causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which can signify Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s unique 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 people rap group from Western Ukraine, received their likelihood instead.

Wearing 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 will not be an actual nation - but merely a "little Russia", a area that needs reintegration.

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

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

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