Ukraine's Eurovision act has described the UK as their "family" after arriving in Liverpool for the start of the contest. The electronic duo Tvorichi is representing Ukraine in this year's final, after the country won last year's competition.
The act, made up of producer Andrii Hutsuliak and vocalist Jeffery Kenny, will be performing in the final with their song Heart Of Steel. They are hoping to defend Ukraine's title after Kalush Orchestra beat the UK to be crowned the 2022 champions.
Due to Ukraine's invasion by Russia, Eurovision 2023 is being held in Liverpool. Hutsuliak said he was "impressed" by the tributes to Ukraine shown around the city.
“A lot of things we were actually surprised by," he said. "For example, walking earlier we saw sunflowers, a lot of flags everywhere, different installations, objects.
“There are installations that are made by Ukrainian artists united with British artists, and they made those installations which is very cool. We feel like a whole big family and this makes our hearts warm, that we have such friends who can help us in these hard times. We feel very, very thankful for everything.”
Hutsuliak added that Heart Of Steel is about “being strong, being confident, being brave, and staying in a good attitude despite negative situations”.
"We feel like everyone meets those situations in their lives,” he said. "Everyone has hard times because it’s life – and we want to inspire people to be strong in those situations.
"Just bring a good attitude going forward and everything will be good. You can look at the Ukrainians. We have this war and this feeling that we are not safe. You don’t know which minute the missile will strike you or your friends.
"We just want to show by our example that we are united, we are strong, and it’s such a bad situation but we keep doing that. Every citizen of our country is making all the efforts to make the victory faster.
"From kids singing songs on the streets to raise money to give to volunteers who are buying drones or medicine or something else. Everyone is doing their best to make our victory faster. We want by our example to inspire people to be like that."
