Ukraine struggle latest: Russians pushed again far out of Kharkiv – Metropolis 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 basic sense of solidarity around the rest of the continent.

However this year’s occasion is political for other reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which is able to characterize Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s original choice.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former reality show 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, got their chance as an alternative.

Wearing 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 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 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 war predicated on the idea that this country had no nationwide id, no foundational myths, no national heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine more with every passing day.