Eurovision on front line: Will Russia's absence spoil Ukraine's party?

By : Kirthana Dewi

Performers from 42 countries strode down a long red carpet near Ukraine's parliament this week, as a curtain-raiser to this year's Eurovision Song Contest.

But one nation, Russia, was missing. For the first time in Eurovision history, the host nation barred another country's singer.That is because in 2015, in violation of Ukrainian border rules, Russia's Julia Samoilova performed in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia a year earlier.

Samoilova suffers from a neural muscular disorder and has been in a wheelchair since childhood.

"When the rumours began I might not go, I was so sad," she told the BBC in Moscow. "I thought, how come? This was my dream. When the final decision was taken I didn't believe it. But unfortunately, this is the reality."

I think it's a stupid reaction," Russian MP Vitaly Milonov tells me. "They're even afraid of such a small girl to enter Kiev."

Even before Ukraine's ban, Mr Milonov had called for a Russian boycott of Eurovision: "Eurovision became a disgusting socialist nightmare for all these left-wing parties with all their bearded women, or men, with these anti-Christian positions.

"I am sure that most conservatives in the world will never attend this festival. Because this is a festival of Sodom and Gomorrah."

It is supposed to be a festival of peace and friendship but there is not much sign of either in relations between Kiev and Moscow.

In eastern Ukraine, 10,000 people have been killed in three years of war: a war in which Russia is directly involved through its military support for separatist rebels. Crimea remains a source of tension and Eurovision is the latest battleground.

"Since 2014, we've had a law in Ukraine that punishes people who illegally cross our border when they visit Crimea," says Ukrainian MP Olha Chervakova.