Ukraine’s national final Vidbir is back! There are some changes coming to the production, and these are all the details you’ve got to know before the show.
On February 7, 2026, Ukraine’s National Final Vidbir will be upon us, and these are all the details you need to know about the competition!
Ukraine is the only country to still have a 100% qualification streak. That qualification record, combined with their three wins and 14 top ten finishes, means that whoever takes the title in 2026 has some big shoes to fill.
Production and Format
For 2026 edition of the competition, the 2026 Eurovision winner Jamala is acting as the music producer for this year’s competition. Since she won the first edition of Vidbir in 2016, she has acted as a judge at the competition seven times. This is a promotion of her previous role supplying a third of the jury points selecting Ukraine’s Eurovision acts for most of the last decade.
Part of Jamala’s role as the music producer of the competition, along with the selection team, was the task of narrowing down 451 submitted songs to a long list of 15. That long list was further narrowed down to nine acts that were announced as making it to the final. The remaining six of the long-listed songs were put into an online wild card competition that the public voted on to select the tenth and final act that would compete at the Vidbir Final in February.
The winner of the contest will be determined 50/50 by a public vote and a panel of jurors. In previous years the panel consisted of three musicians and producers, but for the 2026 edition of the competition, the juror panel has been expanded to five entertainment professionals. The panel consists of Ruslana (the first Ukrainian Eurovision winner from 2004), Zlata Ognevich (Ukraine’s 2013 representative), Yevhen Filatov (a singer and composer), Vitaliy Drozdov (producer of a media and radio company), and Kostyantyn Tomilchenko (a choreographer).
The 2026 Acts
In December, the nine acts selected by the production team that will be competing at Vibir were announced on the Suspilne (the Ukrainian National Broadcaster)’s official site. On January 13 the wild card winner was announced. The acts and their song titles are as follows:
- Open Our Hearts by Valeriya Force
- Legends by Molodi
- Tut by Monokate
- Crawling Whispers by The Elliens
- Light Keeper by Laud
- Ridnym by Leléka
- Do or Done by Mr. vel
- Hertsy by Khayat
- Catharticus (Prayer) by Jerry Heil
- Moia zemlia by ShchukaRyba
Of the ten acts who are competing, a number of them will be familiar names, faces, and voices to Eurovision fans and those who are fans of the previous editions of the Vidbir competition.
Monokate is the stage name of Kateryna Pavlenko. In 2020 she, along with her bandmates of Go_A won Vidbir with their song Solovey. With Eurovision being canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they were automatically selected to go on to Eurovision in 2021 with the song Shum, which placed fifth at the competition (but was second in the public vote) and climbed to the top of the Spotify Viral 50 Charts shortly after the competition. Apart from being a fan favorite amongst Eurovision watchers, she has also hosted previous editions of Vidbir.
Jerry Heil is another previous Vidbir winner. On her third attempt at the competition, she was joined by Ukrainian rapper Alyona Alyona, and they won the competition with the song Teresa & Maria in 2024. The two went out to place third at Eurovision, win the televote, and chart across Europe. Jerry Heil’s other previous Vidbir entries were Vegan (which placed sixth in the 2020 final) and When God Shut the Door (the song placed third at the 2023 Vidbir Final).
Other acts who have competed in Vidbir and who are returning to the contest in 2026 are Molodi, Laud, and the wild card winner Khayat. Molodi placed second at last year’s edition of Vidbir with their song My Sea. Since their second-place finish last February, the duo has been busy releasing five additional singles and an acoustic version of their song from the 2025 edition of Vidbir. Laud competed at Virbir in 2018 with Waiting, 2019 with 2 dni, and in 2022 he had been slated to compete, but his song Head Under Water was disqualified for having been performed previously in 2018. The 2026 Wild Card Winner Khayat has competed three times before. The first time was in 2019 with the song Ever, in 2020 with Call for Love which earned him a second-place finish, and last year with Honor. And for fans of Junior Eurovision, one of the members of The Elliens, Olena Usenko, represented Ukraine at the contest in 2021 with the song Vazhil.
The remaining four acts are newcomers to the world of Vidbir and Eurovision. Valeriya Force is a singer-songwriter who mixes pop, hip-hop, and R&B music and has been featured on a number of international music publications’ playlists as an artist to watch. Mr. Vel has a background in musical theater and has competed in the Ukrainian versions of X-Factor and The Voice. ShchukaRybа is a folk band from Central Ukraine that mixes traditional folk music with modern instrumentation.
To prepare for the competition on February 7, 2026, starting at 12:00pm Eastern Time, you can prepare by listening to the ten competing entries on the Official Eurovision Ukraine YouTube Channel here. You can also set your reminder for the live stream. They will be providing English commentary this year too!