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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This 12 months's Eurovision is surely 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 around the rest of the continent.

However this year’s event is political for other reasons too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which can represent Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s original alternative.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former actuality present 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, obtained their probability as a substitute.

Dressed in traditional outfits and drawing on the country’s long but 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 needs reintegration.

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

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

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