Russia’s Eurovision song is all about peace and unity. You know, just like its foreign policy

VIENNA, Austria — Peace, love, and unity. They’re not exactly the virtues most associated with Russia these days.

Western leaders regularly blame the former Soviet superpower for fueling the war in eastern Ukraine and isolating itself from the international community.

Still, Russia’s gushy entry in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest — “A Million Voices,” performed by Polina Gagarina — is all about friendship and togetherness.

Heading into the finals on Saturday, Gagarina is actually among the favorites to win Europe’s wildly popular song contest.

But for anyone who has followed Moscow’s belligerent rhetoric on the world stage — the anti-West diatribes, the nuclear saber-rattling, et al — a quick look at the song’s lyrics might leave them scratching their head. Or rolling their eyes.

Here are the first two verses: 

“We are the world’s people,
Different yet we’re the same,
We believe,
We believe in a dream.

“Praying for peace and healing,
I hope we can start again,
We believe,
We believe in a dream.”

Public broadcasters in competing nations are responsible for selecting their Eurovision entrants. Gagarina, meanwhile, has tried to duck the politics that tend to color the decades-old competition.

For instance, she fudged her response to a question about Russia’s dismal LGBT rights situation at a recent news conference in Vienna. The country’s widely maligned gay “propaganda” ban was one of the reasons its entry was booed at last year's competition. That, and Moscow’s meddling in Ukraine.

Gagarina also tried to play down any career dampers that Russia’s conflict with Ukraine might have had, telling local media that “for an artist, there are no borders.” 

But despite the annual pleas by Eurovision organizers to keep politics out of the picture, it’s hard to resist.

In a leading nationalist journal, one Russian commentator wrote that a Eurovision win might score his country some much-needed points in this geopolitically charged environment.

Despite the potential “hostile machinations” that might be involved, that is.

“Polina Gagarina must show that … we’ll try to win something even on their territory and by their rules.”