Ukrainian singer Jamala says she rejects criticism that her song 1944 took top prize at the Eurovision Song Contest for political rather than artistic reasons. Speaking to the press in Kyiv May 17 she called her win an "absolute, 100 percent victory of the music."
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Jamala says song won on artistic, not political, grounds
Ukrainian singer Jamala, winner of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest, speaks during a press conference in Kyiv on May 17, 2016. Russian lawmakers and commentators lashed out at Ukraine's \"political\" victory in the Eurovision Song Contest, insisting Moscow's entrant was robbed by its arch-foe, as the winner returned to Kyiv to a rapturous welcome. Jamala won the glitzy contest on May 14 with her ballad \"1944\" about the deportation of the Crimean Tatars by Soviet authorities during World War II, in a performance widely seen as a swipe at Moscow over its annexation of the peninsula in 2014.
