The Decision Not To Hold Next Year’s Eurovision In Ukraine Is Politically Significant

Slowly but surely, not only is Russia making tangible on-the-ground progress in the Battle for Donbass, but so too is the West losing hope that Kiev will emerge victorious. The decision not to hold next year’s Eurovision in that former Soviet Republic is a symbolic expression of these lost hopes that correspond to that civilization finally beginning to report partial truths about the conflict.

The European Broadcasting Union just announced that next year’s Eurovision won’t be held in Ukraine since they can’t provide the security and operational guarantees that are required. This is politically significant since it adds credence to the Washington Post’s latest report citing unnamed US sources who predict that the Ukrainian Conflict will become protracted and thus won’t be resolved anytime soon. This also throws cold water on the hopes that the EU’s “Big Three” – the French, German, and Italian Prime Ministers – who recently traveled to Kiev will succeed in their speculative ceasefire proposal.

Be that as it may, Kiev’s daily casualty rate and ridiculous arms demands certainly suggest that it cannot win its so-called “war of attrition” with Russia as some observers have recently taken to calling it. Nevertheless, even if it capitulates by accepting a ceasefire sometime before next year, the fact that the European Broadcasting Union already decided not to hold next year’s Eurovision in that former Soviet Republic shows that they’ve already thrown in the towel and given up hoping for the situation to improve anytime soon. It’s due to this lack of confidence that Kiev strongly protested their decision.

There’s another reason why that NATO proxy state is so perturbed and it’s that Zelensky promised to do his utmost to host next year’s event in Mariupol. It’s of course impossible for him to make good on that pledge since Russia liberated that coastal city and will thus never let Kiev’s fascists return there, but these false expectations were actually meant to provide an urgent impetus for more Western weapons due to the symbolism of what he promised. By refusing to hold next year’s contest anywhere in Ukraine, the European Broadcasting Union is removing one of the reasons for more arms to be sent.

This doesn’t mean that the West will cut off its arms supply to Kiev, but just that one of the most emotional reasons for continuing to keep these rat lines in place is no longer relevant, which will in turn likely lead to less Europeans supporting the NATO-led proxy war on Russia through Ukraine. According to a recent study from the European Council on Foreign Relations, more Europeans already favor peace over punishing Russia, with this proportion predicted to increase in light of the latest Eurovision decision, which aligns with the “official narrative” on the conflict decisively shifting in recent weeks.

Slowly but surely, not only is Russia making tangible on-the-ground progress in the Battle for Donbass, but so too is the West losing hope that Kiev will emerge victorious. The decision not to hold next year’s Eurovision in that former Soviet Republic is a symbolic expression of these lost hopes that correspond to that civilization finally beginning to report partial truths about the conflict. Zelensky feels that his patrons are pressuring him into making concessions to Russia, which he publicly accused them of earlier this month, but even that potential outcome won’t be enough for Eurovision to be held in his country.