Ukrainian band Kalush Orchestra won the Eurovision Song Contest in the early hours of Sunday in a clear show of popular support for the war-ravaged nation that went beyond music. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the victory, Ukraine's third since its 2003 Eurovision debut, and said “we will do our best” to host next year's contest in the hotly contested port city of Mariupol. He underlined “Ukrainian Mariupol,” adding: “free, peaceful, rebuilt!” "I am sure our victorious chord in the battle with the enemy is not far off,'' Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram messaging app. Kalush Orchestra's front man, Oleh Psiuk, took advantage of the enormous global audience, last year numbering more than 180 million, to make impassioned plea to free fighters still trapped beneath a sprawling steel plant in Mariupol following their performance. “Help Azovstal, right now,″ Psiuk implored from beneath a bright bucket hat that has become the band’s trademark among fans. He later told a news conference that people can help by “spreading information, talking out this, reaching out to governments to help.” Kalush Orchestra's song, “Stefania,” was the sentimental and bookmakers' favorite among the 25 competing performers in the grand finale. The public vote from home, via text message or the Eurovision app, proved decisive, lifting them above British Tik Tok star Sam Ryder, who led after the national juries in 40 countries cast their votes. The 439 fan votes is the highest number of televote points ever received in a Eurovision contest, now in its 66th year. Psiuk thanked the Ukrainian diaspora and “and everyone around the world who voted for Ukraine. ... The victory is very important to Ukraine. Especially this year.” “Stefania” was penned by Psiuk as a tribute to his mother, but since Russia's Feb. 24 invasion it has become an anthem to the motherland, with lyrics that pledge: “I’ll always find my way home, even if all roads are destroyed." Kalush Orchestra itself is a cultural project that includes folklore experts and mixes traditional folk melodies and contemporary hip hop in a purposeful defense of Ukrainian culture. That has become an even more salient point as Russia through its invasion has sought falsely to assert that Ukraine's culture is not unique. “We are here to show that Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian music are alive, and they have their own and very special signature,'' Psuik told journalists. The plea to free the remaining Ukrainian fighters trapped beneath the Azovstal plant by Russians served as a somber reminder that the hugely popular and at times flamboyant Eurovision song contest was being played out against the backdrop of a war on Europe’s eastern flank. READ: 15 bands keep fans on their feet at Dhaka Rock Fest 2.0 The Azov battalion, which is among the plant's last 1,000 defenders, sent their thanks from the warren of tunnels beneath the plant, posting on Telegram: “Thank you to Kalush Orchestra for your support! Glory to Ukraine!” The city itself has been the site of some of the worst destruction of the 2 1/2-month war, as Russia seeks to secure a land bridge between separatist-controlled Donbas and Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. The six-member, all-male band received special permission to leave the country to represent Ukraine and Ukrainian culture at the music contest. One of the original members stayed to fight, and the others will be back in Ukraine in two days, when their temporary exit permit expires. Before traveling to Italy, Psiuk was running a volunteer organization he set up early in the war that uses social media to help find transportation and shelter for people in need “It is hard to say what I am going to do, because this is the first time I win Eurovision,'' Psuik said. ”Like every Ukrainian, I am ready to fight and go until the end." . While the support for Ukraine in the song contest was ultimately overwhelming, the contest remained wide open until the final popular votes were tallied. And war or not, fans from Spain, Britain and elsewhere entering the PalaOlimpico venue from throughout Europe were rooting for their own country to win. Still, Ukrainian music fan Iryna Lasiy said she felt global support for her country in the war and “not only for the music.” Russia was excluded this year after its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, a move organizers said was meant to keep politics out of the contest that promotes diversity and friendship among nations. Back in Ukraine, in the battered northeastern city of Kharkiv, Kalush Orchestra’s participation in Eurovision is seen as giving the nation another platform to garner international support. “The whole country is rising, everyone in the world supports us. This is extremely nice,″ said Julia Vashenko, a 29-year-old teacher. “I believe that wherever there is Ukraine now and there is an opportunity to talk about the war, we need to talk,″ said Alexandra Konovalova, a 23-year-old make-up artist in Kharkiv. “Any competitions are important now, because of them more people learn about what is happening now.” Ukrainians in Italy also were using the Eurovision event as a backdrop to a flashmob this week to appeal for help for Mariupol. About 30 Ukrainians gathered in a bar in Milan to watch the broadcast, many wearing a bright bucket hat like the one Psiuk sports, in support of the band. “We are so happy he called on helping to save the people in Mariupol,'' said lawyer Zoia Stankovska during the show. “Oh, this victory brings so much hope." The winner takes home a glass microphone trophy and a potential career boost — although Kalush Orchestra's first concern is peace. The event was hosted by Italy after local rock band Maneskin won last year in Rotterdam. The victory shot the Rome-based band to international fame, opening for the Rolling Stones and appearing on Saturday Night Live and numerous magazine covers in their typically genderless costume code. Twenty bands were chosen in two semifinals this week, and were competing along with the Big Five of Italy, Britain, France, Germany and Spain, which have permanent berths due to their financial support of the contest. Ukrainian commentator Timur Miroshnichenko, who does the live voiceover for Ukraine’s broadcast of Eurovision, was participating from a basement in an undisclosed location, rather than from his usual TV studio. “On the fifth or fourth day of the war, they shot our TV tower in Kiev,” he said. To keep broadcasting, “we had to move underground somewhere in Ukraine.” Showing Eurovision in Ukraine was important, online and on TV, he said. “This year, I think it’s more symbolic than ever,” Miroshnichenko said. Ukraine was able to participate in the music contest “thanks to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the resistance of our people,” he said.

Ukrainian fighters in the tunnels underneath Mariupol’s pulverized steel plant held out against Russian troops Thursday in an increasingly desperate and perhaps doomed effort to deny Moscow what would be its biggest success of the war yet: the complete capture of the strategic port city. The bloody battle came amid growing speculation that President Vladimir Putin wants to present the Russian people with a battlefield triumph — or announce an escalation of the war — in time for Victory Day on Monday. Victory Day is the biggest patriotic holiday on the Russian calendar, marking the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany. Some 2,000 Ukrainian fighters, by Russia’s most recent estimate, were holed up at Mariupol’s sprawling Azovstal steelworks, the last pocket of resistance in a city largely reduced to rubble over the past two months. A few hundred civilians were also believed trapped there. The defenders will “stand till the end. They only hope for a miracle,” Kateryna Prokopenko said after speaking by phone to her husband, a leader of the steel plant defenders. “They won’t surrender.” She said her husband, Azov Regiment commander Denys Prokopenko, told her he would love her forever. “I am going mad from this. It seemed like words of goodbye,” she said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack was preventing the evacuation of civilians remaining in the plant’s underground bunkers. “Just imagine this hell! And there are children there,” he said late Thursday in his nightly video address. “More than two months of constant shelling, bombing, constant death.” The Russians managed to get inside with the help of an electrician who knew the layout, said Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Internal Affairs Ministry. READ: Ukraine: Russia using ‘missile terrorism’ in wide attacks “He showed them the underground tunnels which are leading to the factory,” Gerashchenko said in a video posted late Wednesday. “Yesterday, the Russians started storming these tunnels, using the information they received from the betrayer.” The Kremlin denied its troops were storming the plant. The fall of Mariupol would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops to fight elsewhere in the Donbas, the eastern industrial region that the Kremlin says is now its chief objective. Capt. Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, pleaded on Ukrainian TV for the evacuation of civilians and wounded fighters from the steelworks, saying soldiers were “dying in agony due to the lack of proper treatment.” The Kremlin has demanded the troops surrender. They have refused. Russia has also accused them of preventing the civilians from leaving. The head of the United Nations said another attempt to evacuate civilians from Mariupol and the plant was underway. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: “We must continue to do all we can to get people out of these hellscapes.” More than 100 civilians were rescued from the steelworks over the weekend. But many previous attempts to open safe corridors from Mariupol have fallen through, with Ukraine blaming shelling and firing by the Russians. Meanwhile, 10 weeks into the devastating war, Ukraine’s military claimed it recaptured some areas in the south and repelled other attacks in the east, further frustrating Putin’s ambitions after his abortive attempt to seize Kyiv. Ukrainian and Russian forces are fighting village by village. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Russian forces are making only “plodding” progress in the Donbas. The head of Britain’s armed forces, Chief of the Defense Staff Adm. Tony Radakin, said Putin is “trying to rush to a tactical victory” before Victory Day. But he said Russian forces are struggling to gain momentum. Radakin told British broadcaster Talk TV that Russia is using missiles and weapons at such a rate that it is in a “logistics war” to keep supplied. “This is going to be a hard slog,” he said. On Thursday, an American official said the U.S. shared intelligence with Ukraine about the location of a Russian flagship before the mid-April strike that sank it, one of Moscow’s highest-profile failures in the war. The U.S. has provided “a range of intelligence” that includes locations of warships, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said the decision to target the missile cruiser Moskva was purely a Ukrainian decision. Fearful of new attacks surrounding Victory Day, the mayor of the western Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk urged residents to leave for the countryside over the long weekend and warned them not to gather in public places. And the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, a key transit point for evacuees from Mariupol, announced a curfew from Sunday evening through Tuesday morning. In other developments, Belarus’ authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, defended Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in an interview with The Associated Press but said he didn’t expect the conflict to “drag on this way.” Lukashenko, whose country was used by the Russians as a launch pad for the invasion, said Moscow had to act because Kyiv was “provoking” Russia. But he also created some distance between himself and the Kremlin, repeatedly calling for an end to the conflict and referring to it as a “war” — a term Moscow refuses to use. It insists on calling the fighting a “special military operation.” Mariupol, which had a prewar population of over 400,000, has come to symbolize the misery inflicted by the war. The siege of the city has trapped perhaps 100,000 civilians with little food, water, medicine or heat. As the battle raged there, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Russian bombardment Thursday hit dozens of Ukrainian military targets, including troop concentrations in the east, an artillery battery near the eastern settlement of Zarozhne, and rocket launchers near the southern city of Mykolaiv. Five people were killed and dozens injured in shelling of cities in the Donbas over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian officials said, with shells hitting schools, apartments and a medical facility. Ukrainian forces said they made some gains on the border of the southern regions of Kherson and Mykolaiv and repelled 11 Russian attacks in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the Donbas. The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said that Ukrainian forces “have largely stalled Russian advances in eastern Ukraine,” and intensified Russian airstrikes on transportation infrastructure in the western part of the country have failed to stop Western aid shipments to Ukraine. But the war has devastated the country’s medical infrastructure, Zelenskyy said in a video link to a charity event in the U.K., with nearly 400 healthcare facilities damaged or destroyed. “There is simply a catastrophic situation regarding access to medical services and medicines,” in areas occupied by Russian forces, he said. “Even the simplest drugs are lacking.” With the challenge of mine-clearing and rebuilding after the war in mind, Zelenskyy announced the launch of a global fundraising platform called United24. At the same time, Poland hosted an international donor conference that raised $6.5 billion in humanitarian aid. The gathering was attended by prime ministers and ambassadors from many European countries, as well as representatives of nations farther afield and some businesses. In addition, a Ukrainian cabinet body began to develop proposals for a comprehensive postwar reconstruction plan, while Zelenskyy also urged Western allies to put forward a program similar to the post-World War II Marshall Plan plan to help Ukraine rebuild.

Russia stepped up its bombardment of Kyiv on Tuesday, smashing apartments and a subway station, while civilians in 2,000 cars fled Mariupol along a humanitarian corridor in what was believed to be the biggest evacuation yet from the desperately besieged seaport. On the diplomatic front, another round of talks began between Russia and Ukraine via video, and the leaders of three European Union countries — including Poland, a NATO member on Ukraine’s doorstep — planned a visit to the embattled capital in a bold show of support. With the number of people driven from the country by the war eclipsing 3 million, l arge explosions thundered across Kyiv before dawn from what Ukrainian authorities said were artillery strikes, as Russia’s assault on the capital appeared to become more systematic and edged closer to the city center. READ: Ukraine's capital barraged; 3 EU nation leaders to visit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said barrages hit four multi-story buildings in the city and killed dozens of people. The shelling ignited a huge fire in a 15-story apartment building and spurred a frantic rescue effort. The strikes, carried out of the 20th day of Russia’s invasion, targeted a western district of Kyiv, disrupting a relative calm that returned after an initial advance by Moscow’s forces was stopped in the early days of the war. The U.N. said close to 700 civilians in Ukraine have been confirmed killed, with the true figure probably much higher. Fox News video journalist Pierre Zakrzewski was killed when the vehicle he was traveling in was hit by fire Monday on the outskirts of Kyiv, the network said. He was the second journalist killed in Ukraine in two days. The leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia set out for Kyiv by train despite the security risks, in a visit EU officials said was not sanctioned by other members of the 27-nation bloc. “The aim of the visit is to express the European Union’s unequivocal support for Ukraine and its freedom and independence,” Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said in a tweet. He was joined by fellow Prime Ministers Janez Jansa of Slovenia and Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland, as well as Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland’s de facto leader. New efforts to bring civilians to safety and deliver aid were underway around the country. The Red Cross said it was working to evacuate people from the northeastern town of Sumy near the Russian border in about 70 buses. READ: UN says women pay highest price in conflict, now in Ukraine One of the most desperate situations is in Mariupol, the southern city of 430,000 where officials say a weekslong siege has killed more than 2,300 people and left residents struggling for food, water, heat and medicine. The Mariupol city council reported that 2,000 civilian cars had managed to leave along a humanitarian corridor that runs for more than 260 kilometers (160 miles) west to the city of Zaporizhzhia. Another 2,000 cars were waiting to leave along the route, the council said. As for the latest round of talks, Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said they were discussing a cease-fire and Russian troop withdrawal. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow would press its demands that Ukraine drop its bid to join NATO, adopt a neutral status and “demilitarize.” Zelenskyy told European leaders gathered in London that his country realizes it can’t join NATO. “We have heard for many years about the open doors, but we also heard that we can’t enter those doors,” he said. “This is the truth, and we have simply to accept it as it is.” When Russia launched the war three weeks ago, fear of an imminent invasion gripped the Ukrainian capital, and residents slept in subway stations or crammed onto trains to flee. But as the Russian offensive bogged down, Kyiv saw a relative lull. U.S. officials said Russian forces were about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the center of the city as of Monday. Fighting has intensified on Kyiv’s outskirts in recent days, and air raid sirens wailed inside the capital. Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced a 35-hour curfew extending through Thursday morning. Tuesday’s artillery strikes hit the Svyatoshynskyi district of western Kyiv, adjacent to the suburb of Irpin, which has seen some of the worst fighting of the war. Flames shot out of the 15-story apartment building and smoke choked the air as firefighters climbed ladders to rescue people. The assault blackened several floors of the building, ripped a hole in the ground outside and blew out windows in neighboring apartment blocks. Rescue workers said at least one person was killed. “Yesterday we extinguished one fire, today another. It is very difficult,” a firefighter who gave only his first name, Andriy, said outside the building, tears falling from his eyes. “People are dying, and the worst thing is that children are dying. They haven’t lived their lives and they have already seen this.” Resident Volodymr Trophimov said he watched as a building was hit. “And then there was a howl, and I watched out of the window, and it crashed into the building and all the windows were smashed,” he said. Shockwaves from an explosion also damaged the entry to a downtown subway station that has been used as a bomb shelter. City authorities tweeted an image of the blown-out facade and said trains would no longer stop at the station. A 10-story apartment building in the Podilsky district of Kyiv, north of the government quarter, was damaged. Russian forces also stepped up strikes overnight on Irpin and the northwest Kyiv suburbs of Hostomel and Bucha, said the head of the capital region, Oleksiy Kuleba. “Many streets have been turned into a mush of steel and concrete. People have been hiding for weeks in basements, and are afraid to go out even for evacuations,” Kuleba said on Ukrainian television. In the country’s east, Russian forces launched more than 60 strikes overnight on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, according to regional administration chief Oleh Sinehubov. The strikes hit the city’s historical center, including the main marketplace. Sinehubov said fires were raging and rescuers pulled dozens of bodies of civilian from the ruins of destroyed apartment buildings. Ukraine’s parliament voted to extend martial law for another month, until April 24. Under the measure, requested by Zelenskyy, men between 18 and 60 are barred from leaving the country so they can be called up to fight. In Mykolaiv, a strategic southern city near the Black Sea where airstrikes killed nine people Sunday, residents braced for more attacks. Volunteers prepared food and sorted donated clothes at an abandoned naval yard that was turned into a support center for troops. Molotov cocktails were on hand to take on invaders. “We are bombed during the day and during the night,” said Svetlana Gryshchenko, whose soldier son was killed in the fighting. “It’s a nightmare what Russia is doing on the territory of Ukraine.”

The vast and empty Chernobyl Exclusion Zone around the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident is a baleful monument to human mistakes. Yet 35 years after a power plant reactor exploded, Ukrainians also look to it for inspiration, solace and income. Reactor No. 4 at the power plant 110 kilometers (65 miles) north of the capital Kyiv exploded and caught fire deep in the night on April 26, 1986, shattering the building and spewing radioactive material high into the sky. Soviet authorities made the catastrophe even worse by failing to tell the public what had happened — although the nearby plant workers’ town of Pripyat was evacuated the next day, the 2 million residents of Kyiv weren’t informed despite the fallout danger. The world learned of the disaster only after heightened radiation was detected in Sweden. Eventually, more than 100,000 people were evacuated from the vicinity and a 2,600-square-kilometer (1,000-square-mile) exclusion zone was established where the only activity was workers disposing of waste and tending to a hastily built sarcophagus covering the reactor. Radiation continued to leak from the reactor building until 2019, when the entire building was covered by an enormous arch-shaped shelter. As robots inside the shelter began dismantling the reactor, officials felt new optimism about the zone. “This is a place of tragedy and memory, but it is also a place where you can see how a person can overcome the consequences of a global catastrophe,” said Bohdan Borukhovskyi, Ukraine’s deputy environment minister. Also read: Ukraine continues to battle forest fire near Chernobyl “We want a new narrative to appear — it was not a zone of exclusion, but a zone of development and revival,” he said. For him, that narrative includes encouraging tourism. “Our tourism is unique, it is not a classic concept of tourism,” he said. “This is an area of meditation and reflection, an area where you can see the impact of human error, but you can also see the human heroism that corrects it.” The Chernobyl zone saw its tourism increase twofold after the lauded television miniseries of 2019 and officials hope that level of interest will continue, or grow, once the global pandemic has receded. One of the prime draws for tourists is to see the ruins of Pripyat, the once-modern town of 50,000 now being taken over by decay and vegetation. Work is underway to build paths to make it easier for visitors to navigate the ruins. The Chernobyl plant is out of service, but there is still much work to be done at the decommissioned plant. Borukhovskyi said all four of its reactors are to be dismantled only by 2064. Ukraine also has decided to use the deserted zone as the site for its centralized storage facility for the spent fuel from the country’s four remaining nuclear power plants, and that is to open this year. Until recently, the fuel was disposed of in Russia. Storing the spent fuel at home will save the country an estimated $200 million a year. “We are doing everything possible so that this territory, where it is now impossible for people to live, is used with benefit and gives the country a profit,” said Serhiy Kostyuk, head of the agency that manages the exclusion zone. Also read: 'Chernobyl' miniseries sends curious tourists to Lithuania Although the radiation level in the zone is low enough that tourists can visit and workers can carry out their jobs, permanent residence is banned. However, more than 100 people still live in the zone that extends 30 kilometers (18 miles) around the nuclear power plant, despite orders to leave the site. Among them is 85-year-old former teacher Yevgeny Markevich, who said: “It’s a great happiness to live at home, but it’s sad that it’s not as it used to be. Today, he grows potatoes and cucumbers on his garden plot, which he takes for tests “in order to partially protect myself.” Long-term effects on human health remain the subject of intense scientific debate. Immediately after the accident, 30 plant workers and firefighters died from acute radiation sickness. Later, thousands of people died from radiation-related illnesses such as cancer. To the surprise of many who expected the area might be a dead zone for centuries, wildlife is thriving: Bears, bison, wolves, lynx, wild horses and dozens of bird species live in the people-free territory. According to scientists, the animals were much more resistant to radiation than expected, and were able to quickly adapt to strong radiation. Ukrainian scientists are researching this phenomenon together with colleagues from Japan and Germany. “This is a gigantic territory ... in which we keep a chronicle of nature,” said biologist Denis Vishnevskiy, 43, who has been observing nature in the reserve for the past 20 years. “The exclusion zone is not a curse, but our resource ” The Ukrainian authorities are calling for the exclusion zone to be included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, since the object is a unique place “of interest to all mankind”. The Ministry of Culture of Ukraine has already taken steps to recognize the zone as a monument, which will attract more funding and tourists.   “Chernobyl should not become a wild playground for adventure hunters,” said Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko. “People should leave the exclusion zone with the awareness of the historical memory of this place and its importance for all mankind.” In the spirit of preserving the memories, some enthusiasts have created the Chornobyl App, which includes declassified documents about the disaster and allows users to explore augmented-reality view of the zone and structures. Also read: Ukraine: Chernobyl reactor's radioactive dust shelter opened “Sixty percent of Ukrainians do not know the date of the accident and we decided that there should be a resource where a lot of verified information is collected,” said Valeriy Korshunov, one of the free app’s developers.