Organizers of the Eurovision Track Contest reversed course on Friday, asserting that Russia would not be permitted to carry out on this 12 months’s occasion.

“The choice displays concern that, in mild of the unprecedented disaster in Ukraine, the inclusion of a Russian entry on this 12 months’s Contest would carry the competitors into disrepute,” the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) mentioned in a assertion.

The choice to punish Russia culturally for invading Ukraine comes a day after the identical group had mentioned Moscow can be allowed to ship an act to seem on the subsequent Eurovision, scheduled to be held in Turin, Italy, in Could.

Ukraine’s public broadcasting firm had requested for Russia to be suspended from the favored contest, which is watched by nearly 200 million individuals every year.

However the EBU, which has organized the competition since 1956, had insisted Eurovision was “a non-political cultural occasion.”

In response, numerous different European nations had indicated they’d not take part on this 12 months’s occasion except Russia was banned.

Russia was but to formally announce an act for this 12 months’s competitors. For the reason that assault on Ukraine, hundreds of Russians have braved the chance of being arrested to protest towards their authorities’s lethal invasion.