Ukraine warfare newest: Russians pushed again far out of Kharkiv – City mayor

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

This year's Eurovision is unquestionably the most political in a long time.

Russia has been banned. Ukraine is the runaway favorite to win, buoyed by a basic sense of solidarity round the remainder of the continent.

But this year’s event is political for other causes too. The Kalush Orchestra, the act which will signify Ukraine tonight, was not the nation’s original choice.

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

But when it was alleged she had visited occupied Crimea, she was dropped amid public outcry.

Kalush Orchestra, a people rap group from Western Ukraine, got their probability instead.

Wearing conventional outfits and drawing on the nation’s long but repressed musical traditions, they're an implicit rebuke to the suggestion, oft repeated by Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine just isn't a real country - but merely a "little Russia", a area that wants reintegration.

Tonight, when the Kalash Orchestra take to the stage, they are going to be representing a nation that's increasingly assured 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 national identity, no foundational myths, no national heroes, no will to withstand, is what's uniting Ukraine extra with each passing day.