KYIV (Reuters) – Ukrainian band Kalush Orchestra, which won the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday, said on Tuesday it plans to tour Europe to raise money for Ukraine’s military.
Kalush Orchestra singer Oleh Psiuk told a press conference in Lviv, western Ukraine, on Tuesday that the band would soon announce the tour dates on Instagram.
“At each show, we will raise funds for the army,” he explained.
He again said he hoped Ukraine could host the musical competition next year and praised the bravery of the fighters at the Azovstal factory in Mariupol, south-eastern Ukraine, which is being withdrawn from this last bastion of resistance in the port city.
The Ukrainian authorities announced on Tuesday the evacuation of the last fighters who still held this last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, where Russia claimed victory on April 21. The Russian authorities have for their part declared that Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered.
By resisting Russian forces and holding them back for 82 days, they “changed the course of the war”, also hailed Mikhaïlo Podoliak, adviser to President Volodimir Zelensky, on Tuesday during an intervention broadcast on national television.
Kalush Orchestra, which takes its name from the western Ukrainian town of Kalush, won Eurovision on Saturday in Turin, Italy, thanks to overwhelming support from the public.
(Report Natalia Zinets, written by Alexander Winning; French version Myriam Rivet, edited by Sophie Louet)
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