Ukraine struggle latest: Russians pushed again far out of Kharkiv – Metropolis mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This 12 months'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 general sense of solidarity round the rest of the continent.

But this year’s event is political for different causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which is able to characterize Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s original selection.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former actuality present contestant.

But 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 probability instead.

Wearing conventional outfits and drawing on the nation’s long however repressed musical traditions, they are an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine is just not a real nation - however merely a "little Russia", a region that needs reintegration.

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

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

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