In the modern Eurovision Song Contest, Ukraine is a powerhouse. In the 19 times that they have competed since 2003 they have won three times, placed in the top five an additional six, and maintain a 100% qualification streak. These achievements are in no small part due to their National Final selection process.
Ukraine has used a national final to select their entry for Eurovision since 2005 (a year that gave us an absolute behemoth of a selection, with 15 semi-finals and more than 75 songs). Since 2016 the national final has been branded as Vidbir, and in the first year under this new name, Ukraine earned their second win with 1944 by Jamala.
Competition Format
This year, Vidbir will consist of three stages.
The first stage consisted of artists submitting songs to the national broadcaster, Suspilne. For the 2025 edition of Vidbir 374 songs were submitted to the broadcaster. Among these entries, 232 were from solo performers and 72 from bands. These entries were all narrowed down to a long list of 20 acts.
The next stage was the 20 long listed acts auditioned for a spot to move on to the televised final. Nine acts earned a spot on the televised final during this process. The remaining 11 acts moved on to an online voting process, where the public voted via the Diia app for who would occupy the 10th and final spot for the final.
The third and final stage of the Vidbir competition will be held on Saturday, February 8. The 10 acts that were selected during the first two stages of the competition will perform for the public and the jury, each group will count for 50% of the total to decide the winner. The jury consists of three people who were selected by the public via the Diia app (like the wildcard artist). Once the points from the jury and public are added up, Vidbir will have a winner (and hopefully a Eurovision entry– in some years it hasn’t been so simple and an alternative to the winner of the contest competed at Eurovision).
Jury Members
As mentioned previously, the Ukrainian public selects the three jurors whose opinion gives half of the weight to the final score in the competition. This year the three jurors are Jamala, Serhiy Tanchynets, and Kateryna Pavlenko. Jamala represented Ukraine at Eurovision in 2016 and earned the nation their second win at Eurovision, this will be her seventh time acting as a juror for the competition. Serhiy Tanchynets is a music producer and the frontman of the Ukrainian band BEZ OBMEZHEN. The third and final juror is Kateryna Pavlenko, the frontwoman of Go_A, the electro folk band that represented Ukraine in 2021 with the song Shum (and winner of Vidbir 2020 who were set to compete at Eurovision with Solovey prior to the contest being canceled).
The Entries
The 10 acts that were able to make it to through the first two rounds of competition and to the broadcasted final are:
- Abiie – Dim
- DK Enerhetyk – Sil’
- Fiïnka – Kultura
- Future Culture – Waste My Time
- Khayat – Honor
- Krylata – Stay True
- Masha Kondratenko – No Time to Cry
- Molodi – My Sea
- Vlad Sheryf – Wind of Change
- Ziferblat – Bird of Pray
This year’s line-up features a diversity of artists and songs. There are newer act looking to get a foothold in the music industry, established acts, and one that came close to taking the trophy in a prior year. The genres represented are rock, pop, industrial, traditional, and genre bending tracks that supply a pleasant surprise.
There are a few up-and-coming acts completing at this year’s edition of Vidbir. One of the newer acts to compete is Abiie, a moniker for Nataliia Shevchenko. Her entry Dim is her second single under her stage name. Wind of Change is Vlad Sheryf’s debut song, following his achievement of making the semi-final on the 13th season of Ukraine’s version of The Voice (he even auditioned with a take on Loreen’s second Eurovision winning song Tattoo). Another solo pop artist (who is a little more established) is Krylata, who frequently mixes in various dance genres in her tracks.
There are three bands competing in Vidbir 2025. Future Culture is competing with one of their first singles, and describe their sound as jazzy hip-hop. Molodi are a duo with a distinctly pop sound, consisting of Kyrylo Rogovyi and Ivan Stepanishchev, who came together in 2022. Despite only working together for little more than two years, have already put out more than a dozen singles. The third band is the post-punk DK Energetyk made up of Yakiv Marnyi, Vsevolod Shutka, and Oleksandr “Fol” Folianskyi. They’ve released three albums and in 2024 won the “New Wave — Best New Names in Rock Music” award at the Muzvar Awards.
One of the biggest names in the competition this year is Masha Kondratenko. While 2025 marks her first year at Vidbir, she is an established actress and singer, first gaining notoriety on the TV series The School. In 2020 she was a finalist on The Voice, and has released more than two dozen songs, including her viral hit Vanka Vstanka.
The three remaining acts are all returnees to Vidbir. Fiïnka, who won her ticket to the final via the online Wildcard selection, competed at Vidbir in 2023 with the song Dovbush. KHAYAT is a Folktronica singer who placed second in the 2020 edition of Vidbir with his song Call for Love, that same year he won the Ukrainian song of the year award with Osoka. The last returning act is the band Ziferblat consisting of brothers Danylo and Valentyn Leshchynskyi and Fedir Hodakov. They were formed in 2015, competed on X-Factor in 2019, and in 2020 won the Muzvar Award’s “Best New Names in Alternative Music”. Eurovision fans will recognize them from placing second at Vidbir 2024 with their song Place I Call Home (after placing first with the Jury).
How to Tune In
With 10 exciting songs and acts, you are not going to want to miss the show. You can tune in to the Official Ukrainian Eurovision Youtube Channel on Saturday, February 8, 2025 at 17:30 CET for the live stream with English commentary!