Russia will not participate in or broadcast the Eurovision Song Contest in Ukraine
Russian Channel One has said that it will not broadcast the Eurovision Song Contest this year because of the refusal of the Ukrainian authorities to let the singer Yuliya Samoylova enter the country to participate.
This was announced in a news broadcast from Channel One, reports Russia’s Interfax news agency.
"Today, Channel One received a letter from the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) informing us that the EBU was unable to resolve the issue of the participation of our contestant, Yuliya Samoylova, in the contest in Kyiv; the EBU reports this with reference to the decision of the Security Services of Ukraine (SBU)," said the presenter.
Channel One stated that they “consider the refusal of the Ukrainian side to be absolutely unreasonable; the cause for it is Ukraine's attempt to politicize the contest, whose goal for its 62-year history has been the unification of people."
"The European Broadcasting Union continues to offer us the option of Yuliya Samoylova's remote participation or replacement by another participant, but Channel One considers both options unacceptable: a remote performance discriminates against the Russian participant and runs counter to the rules and principles of the contest, and the option of replacing Yuliya Samoylova with another performer, in our opinion, cannot even be considered," emphasized the First Channel.
The Chairman of the Eurovision supervisory board, Frank-Dieter Freiling, commented on the decision of Channel One: "We strongly condemn the decision of the Ukrainian authorities to impose a ban on the entry of Yuliya Samoylova, because we believe that it completely undermines the integrity and non-political nature of the Eurovision Song Contest and its mission is to unite all nations through friendly competition,” he said.
"Unfortunately, both proposals were rejected by ‘Channel One’. Therefore, Russia will not participate in the 62nd Eurovision Song Contest. We very much wanted all 43 countries to be able to take part in the contest this year and did everything possible to achieve this,” said the EBU in response to the request of RBC news agency to comment on Channel One’s statement.
Ukraine’s National Public Broadcasting Company issued a statement in response to Russia’s refusal to broadcast the contest.
“The refusal of the Russian First Channel (Russia) to broadcast Eurovision proves that, notwithstanding the declared respect for the fundamental values of Eurovision, the key among which is mutual respect and political neutrality, the aim of the Russian side was not to compete at the outset, but to create a negative information atmosphere around the preparation and conduct of the contest,” the statement of the National Public Broadcasting Company reads.
At the same time, Yuliya Samoylova told RBC that she was very upset that the European Broadcasting Union was unable to resolve the issue regarding her participation in Eurovision.
"But I believe that in the future I will definitely go to this contest from Russia, to another country," the singer said.
Russia was to be represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 by the physically disabled singer Yuliya Samoylova.