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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This year's Eurovision is definitely 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 round 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 represent Ukraine tonight, was not the country’s unique 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 folks rap group from Western Ukraine, received their probability as an alternative.

Wearing traditional 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 just isn't an actual nation - however merely a "little Russia", a region that wants reintegration.

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

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

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