Eurovision gets political

Russia banned, Ukraine hopeful, Eurovision gets political

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

Russia has been banned. Ukraine is the runaway favourite to win, buoyed by a general sense of solidarity around the rest of the continent, Qazet.az reports.

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

That was Alina Pash, a 29-year-old rapper and former reality show 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, got their chance instead.

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 not a real country.

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