Trifling events like the Eurovision song festival are not topics generally discussed by serious media. The recent spat, however, between Russia and Ukraine about the participation of Russian singer Yulia Samoilova to represent her country at the upcoming Eurovision Songfestival in Kiev requires a few words of comment and explanation.
On 12 March it became known that the Samoilova had been selected to represent Russia in Kyiv on 12 May. The ensuing international media reports did not so much stress her good looks, her voice and the fact that she would perform a promising song, as the fact that she has a disability. Because of a serious muscle-illness she uses a wheelchair since her childhood years. The positive media stories about the singer also radiated on Russia as a whole, including President Putin and his clique.
A huge uproar ensued in Russia when the Ukrainian security service SBU decided last week to impose a three-year entry ban into Ukraine on Yulia Samoilova. The reason was that she had performed in Crimea after Russia’s military occupation of this Ukrainian peninsula three years ago. According to international law and recognized by the international community Crimea was and remains Ukrainian territory. Ukrainian law stipulates that access to Crime is only allowed from the Ukrainian mainland. The Russian singer had traveled to Crimea directly from Russia.
The Ukranian travel ban cannot have come as a surprise. Ukraine had repeatedly informed Russia and other countries that non-Ukrainian citizens, including performers and politicians, would be refused entry into Ukraine if they had visited Crimea without Ukrainian permission. Many observers, therefore, take the view that Russia’s selection of Yulia Samoilova was premeditated in order to discredit Ukraine, with some speaking of a Russian ‘provocation’.
One should indeed always remember that in Vladimir Putin’s Russia few headline-grabbing events or decisions occur by chance. Often these are being steered from the circle around the man in the Kremlin and have at least his silent approval. Frequently they are also part of the Kremlin’s so-called ‘hybrid’ war.
Eurovision-fans, not only in Russia but also elsewhere, would have been shocked enough already if Ukraine had prevented a ‘normal’ beautiful young Russian woman « for political reasons to realize her Eurovision dream ». Such condemnation becomes understandably even stronger when the refusal concerns a person in a wheelchair.
People should also know that Yulia Samoilova is not the « little girl that does not understand why Ukraine is so afraid of her » as she recently put it in the Russian newspaper Pravda (NB only very few media is Russia are without any Kremlin influence, and Pravda is definitely not one of these). She certainly is no ‘dumb-blonde’-type of singer who only lives in her superficial music-bubble, but an almost 28-year-old psychologist. Fully in line with the Kremlin narrative she railed in the interview against « Western aggression against Russia », « American warships steaming towards Ukraine », Western efforts «to divide our people » (i.e. considering Ukraïnians and Russians as one people), to finish with « If Russia does not defend Ukraine then the next blow will be for Russia …(and) brother will rise against brother ».
The whole situation put Ukraine in a very tough spot indeed. It could only choose between two evils : either take a principled position against unacceptable Russian aggression in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine and uphold its national dignity, while risking a backlash in international public opinion against its « heartless » decision to ban a « sweet, beautiful girl in a wheelchair » from the Eurovision stage ; or go along with Russia’s almost certain game to morally pressure Ukraine into accepting their smartly chosen candidate, while violating Ukraine’s own fundamental principles and upsetting Ukrainian public opinion which is being provoked by Russian aggression for over three years now. Aggression, which since several weeks brings daily reports again of wounded or fallen Ukrainian soldiers in Russian-occupied Donbas.
