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

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This 12 months's Eurovision is definitely essentially the most political in a very long time.

Russia has been banned. Ukraine is the runaway favorite to win, buoyed by a common 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 is able to symbolize Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s original selection.

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former actuality 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, bought their chance as an alternative.

Dressed in conventional outfits and drawing on the country’s long however repressed musical traditions, they are an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine shouldn't be a real country - but 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 is increasingly confident in itself.

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

A warfare 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 each passing day.