MOSCOW -- The Eurovision song contest, nominally an apolitical festival of pop music confections and cheerfully tacky costumes, erupted into a political dispute Wednesday after Ukraine banned Russia's contestant from entering the country.
Yulia Samoylova, who was to represent Russia in the May 11-13 contest in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, was banned by Ukraine's security service because she had toured in Crimea after Russia's 2014 annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine.