|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Vidbir 2026 has wrapped in Kyiv, and Ukraine has, in time‑honoured fashion, picked its Eurovision act via three hours of trauma pop… and a voting system that looks simple on paper and melts brains in practice.
The show
Suspilne kept things streamlined again this year, with a single 10‑song final, trimmed down from a long list of 15 via auditions and an online wildcard vote. The final ran just over three hours from Kyiv, with Timur Miroshnychenko and Lesia Nikitiuk steering the ship and being open and honest that the songs had been recorded earlier in the evening and the results would be shown live. We all know the reasons why, but it’s nice and refreshing that they can be so open about it.
The jury was a packed panel of Ukrainian Eurovision royalty and industry names, including Ruslana, Zlata Ognevich, and choreographer Kostiantyn Tomilchenko.
The line‑up
On paper, this was one of Vidbir’s most stacked finals in years, with a line‑up that screamed “we are not losing our qualification streak on my watch.” Returning names like KHAYAT, Jerry Heil, LAUD and LELÉKA were joined by fresh faces and bands whose names look like someone leaned on the keyboard (looking at you, ShchukaRyba).
Pre‑show chatter and fan polls had Jerry Heil’s “Catharticus (Prayer)” and Monokate or LELÉKA’s entries as the ones to beat, with Reddit and fan sites quietly convinced we were in for another round of theological pop from Ukraine.
Staging and interval.
The stage set‑up leaned heavily on LED geometry, dry ice and the “we’ve discovered a new camera angle and we’re going to use it every 20 seconds” school of direction. A lot of numbers went for the usual Vidbir recipe: singer at centre stage, dancers doing interpretive angst in the background, and a drone‑like camera swoop at the final chorus just in case you weren’t already dizzy.
Interval acts were a veritible Eurovision jukebox: past Ukrainian representatives turning up to remind everyone that this country’s “average” is most nations’ dream result. Somewhere between the guest spots and recap clips, the hosts tried to explain the voting one more time, which we didn’t listen to because everyone was too busy refreshing the app to see if the servers had crashed (They even asked us to light a candle to ensure it didn’t crash).
We then went into the bunker for the results….
The result
| Song | Performer(s) | Jury | Televote | Total | Psn |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open Our Hearts | Valeriya Force | 4 | 2 | 6 | 7 |
| THE LEGENDS | MOLODI | 2 | 4 | 6 | 7 |
| TUT | Monokate | 6 | 3 | 9 | 6 |
| Crawling whispers | The Elliens | 1 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| Lightkeeper | LAUD | 9 | 9 | 18 | 2 |
| Ridnym | LELÉKA | 10 | 10 | 20 | 1 |
| Do or Done | Mr. Vel | 7 | 6 | 13 | 4 |
| Hertsi | KHAYAT | 5 | 7 | 12 | 5 |
| CATHARTICUS (prayer) | Jerry Heil | 8 | 8 | 16 | 3 |
| Moia zemlia | ShchukaRyba | 3 | 1 | 4 | 10 |
What it means for Eurovision?
Strategically, Ukraine has once again refused to phone it in which they could well do with all of the shenanigans that have been going on. With that 100% qualification record still intact, somehow, and three wins already on the board, nobody is writing them off for Vienna 2026, even at this early stage. For now, Vidbir has done its job: drama delivered, fandom fed, and Ukraine marching into another Eurovision season with a song that looks tailor‑made to ruin somebody else’s chances of glory.
