# Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2025

Ukraine will be represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 with the song "Bird of Pray", written by Danylo Leshchynskyi, Fedir Khodakov and Valentyn Leshchynskyi, and performed by themselves as Ziferblat. The Ukrainian participating broadcaster, Suspilne, organised the national final Vidbir 2025 in order to select its entry for the contest.

## Background

Prior to the 2025 contest, the National Television Company of Ukraine (NTU) until 2016, and Suspilne since 2017, had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 19 times since its first entry in 2003. It had won the contest on three occasions: in 2004 with the song "Wild Dances" performed by Ruslana, in 2016 with the song "1944" performed by Jamala, and in 2022 with the song "Stefania" performed by Kalush Orchestra. It had been the runner-up in the contest on two occasions: in 2007 with the song "Dancing Lasha Tumbai" performed by Verka Serduchka and in 2008 with the song "Shady Lady" performed by Ani Lorak. Following the introduction of semi-finals in 2004, Ukraine had managed to qualify to final in every contest it participated in thus far. Its least successful result had been 24th place, which was achieved in 2017 with the song "Time" performed by O.Torvald. In 2024, "Teresa & Maria" performed by Alyona Alyona and Jerry Heil placed third.
As part of its duties as participating broadcaster, Suspilne organises the selection of its entry in the Eurovision Song Contest and broadcasts the event in the country. Suspilne confirmed its intentions to participate at the 2025 contest on 10 September 2024. In the past, the broadcaster had alternated between both internal selections and national finals in order to select its entry. Between 2022 and 2024, Suspilne had set up national finals with several artists to choose both the song and performer to compete at Eurovision, with both the public and a panel of jury members involved in the selection. The method was continued to select its 2025 entry.

## Before Eurovision
### Vidbir 2025

Vidbir 2025 was the ninth edition of Vidbir which selected the Ukrainian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2025. The competition consisted of a final 8 February 2025 and took place in Kyiv.

#### Format

The selection of the competing entries for the national final and ultimately the Ukrainian Eurovision entry took place over three stages. In the first stage, artists and songwriters had the opportunity to apply for the competition either through an online submission form. Twenty acts were longlisted and announced on 11 December 2024. The second stage will involve the longlisted artists attending a scheduled audition. Up to nine acts will be selected, while an additional act will be selected from an online selection. The third stage was the televised final, which took place in February 2025 and featured the acts vying to represent Ukraine in Basel. The winner was selected via the combination of votes from a public vote and an expert jury, the latter of which its members will be selected by the public.

#### Competing entries

Artists and composers had the opportunity to submit their entries via an online submission form which accepted entries between 17 September 2024 and 10 November 2024. Only artists that had not performed in events organized by/located in the territory of "the aggressor state" or illegally entered the territory of Crimea since 15 March 2014 were allowed to apply for the competition, and songs performed in the "language of the aggressor state" were prohibited. Tina Karol, who represented Ukraine in 2006, was assigned as the new music producer of the competition and was the lead in reviewing the 374 received submissions. 20 entries were longlisted, of which their artists were announced on 11 December 2024. Auditions were held in late December 2024 where nine entries were shortlisted to compete in the national final. On 20 December 2024, the nine selected competing acts were announced. A public online vote among the non-qualifying entries from the auditions will be held by 17 January 2025 to determine an additional competing act.
Longlisted artists :
* Abiye
* Brykulets
* DK Enerhetyk
* Enleo [uk]
* Fiїnka
* Future Culture
* Grisana
* Khayat
* Krylata
* Masha Kondratenko
* Molodi
* Mon Fia
* Muaiad
* Ranrawi
* Slukhai Sashu
* Starykova Hrystyna
* Teslenko
* Yagody [uk]
* Vlad Sherif [uk]
* Ziferblat
Online wildcard – 13-17 January 2025 :
| Draw | Artist | Song | Songwriter(s) | Votes | Place |
| 1 | Enleo | "Supernova" | Oleksandr BiliakMykyta Leontiev | 41,649 | 2 |
| 2 | Muayad | "Amnesia" | Evhen ZapoteevMuayad Abdelrakhim | 28,157 | 4 |
| 3 | Brykulets | "Kryshtali" (Кришталi) | Ivan Ischenko | 10,528 | 8 |
| 4 | Ranrawi | "Anymore" | Kuzianna Fidelska | 3,431 | 10 |
| 5 | Grisana | "Kohoney" | Ivan KlymenkoStanyslav ChornyiAnastasiia HritsunStorm | 13,637 | 7 |
| 6 | Slukhai Sashu | "Zhyvy" (Живи) | Oleksandra BlyzniukovaOleksandra Honcharuk | 19,646 | 6 |
| 7 | Mon Fia | "Dive Inside" | Hannes VolzMichael C. FischerSofiia Semeniuk | 24,095 | 5 |
| 8 | Yagody | "BramaYa" (БрамаЯ) | Viktoriia SolovyiukSerhii SvirskyiTeymuraz Gogitidze | 31,676 | 3 |
| 9 | Starykova Hrystyna | "Rise" | Hrystyna Starykova | 9,652 | 9 |
| 10 | Fiїnka | "Kultura" (Культура) | Iryna VyhovanetsOles Mykhailovych | 79,699 | 1 |
Vidbir 2025 participating entries :
| Artist | Song | Songwriter(s) |
| Abiye | "Dim" (Дім) | Nataliya Shevchenko-Korovina |
| DK Enerhetyk | "Sil'" (Cіль) | Vsevolod ShutkaOleksandr FolyanskyiYakiv Marnyi |
| Fiїnka | "Kultura" (Культура) | Iryna VyhovanetsOles Mykhailovych |
| Future Culture | "Waste My Time" | Andrii LytvynenkoAndrii ShulakovDaria RemezOleksii RudenkoOleksii Savienkov |
| Khayat | "Honor" | Andrii Khayat |
| Krylata | "Stay True" | Anastasiia ZavadskaVladyslav Malyi |
| Masha Kondratenko | "No Time to Cry" | Masha KondratenkoRoman GrisiukStanyslav Malikov |
| Molodi | "My Sea" | Kyrylo RohovyiAndrii ParfenovAnton ChilibiIvan Stepanishchev |
| Vlad Sheryf | "Wind of Change" | Vlad SheriffNikita Shkuropat |
| Ziferblat | "Bird of Pray" | Valentyn LeshchynskyiDanylo LeshchynskyiFedir Khodakov |

#### Jury member selection

The three members of the expert jury for Vidbir 2025 were selected among nine candidates via a public online vote on the Diia application, open to all Ukrainian citizens from 16 to 23 December 2024. A total of 442,374 votes were cast, with Jamala, Serhiy Tanchynets [uk] and Kateryna Pavlenko being determined as the jurors.
Jury member selection – 16-23 December 2024 :
| Candidate | Occupation(s) | Score | Result |
| Andrii Hutsuliak | Winner of Vidbir 2023 and Ukrainian representative in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 as part of Tvorchi | 3.07% | Not selected |
| Anna Svyrydova | Television and radio presenter | 1.88% | Not selected |
| Dmytro Shurov | Musician, music producer of 2023 and 2024 editions of Vidbir | 11.48% | Not selected |
| Dmytro Zezulin | Lead singer and composer of the band Latexfauna [uk] | 2.91% | Not selected |
| Jamala | Winner of Vidbir 2016 and of the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 | 35.28% | Selected |
| Kateryna Pavlenko | Winner of Vidbir 2020 and Ukrainian representative in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 as part of Go_A | 11.84% | Selected |
| Katya Tsaryk | Film director and screenwriter | 3.31% | Not selected |
| Oleh Psiuk | Winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 as part of Kalush Orchestra | 7.12% | Not selected |
| Sasha Chemerov | Musician, singer and producer | 2.88% | Not selected |
| Serhiy Tanchynets [uk] | Music producer, singer and musician | 20.24% | Selected |

#### Final

The final took place on 8 February 2025. In addition to the competing entries, the guest performers included Alyona Alyona, Jamala, Jerry Heil, Kateryna Pavlenko, Mélovin, Ruslana, Tymofii Muzychuk, Tina Karol and Tvorchi with "Usmikhnysia meni", Ruslana with "Zakrutyla", Badstreet Boys with "Eurosong", and Artem Kotenko and Svitlana Tarabarova with "Hear Me Now". Ziferblat were declared the winners with the song "Bird of Pray".
Final – 8 February 2025 :
| Draw | Artist | Song | Jury | Public vote | Public vote | Total | Place |
| Draw | Artist | Song | Jury | Votes | Points | Total | Place |
| 1 | Vlad Sheryf | "Wind of Change" | 1 | 2,302 | 1 | 2 | 10 |
| 2 | Abiye | "Dim" | 2 | 5,595 | 3 | 5 | 9 |
| 3 | Molodi | "My Sea" | 7 | 70,885 | 9 | 16 | 2 |
| 4 | Future Culture | "Waste My Time" | 5 | 2,338 | 2 | 7 | 8 |
| 5 | Masha Kondratenko | "No Time to Cry" | 8 | 62,439 | 8 | 16 | 3 |
| 6 | Khayat | "Honor" | 10 | 44,299 | 6 | 16 | 4 |
| 7 | Fiїnka | "Kultura" | 6 | 52,858 | 7 | 13 | 5 |
| 8 | Krylata | "Stay True" | 4 | 11,726 | 4 | 8 | 7 |
| 9 | Ziferblat | "Bird of Pray" | 9 | 90,390 | 10 | 19 | 1 |
| 10 | DK Enerhetyk | "Sil" | 3 | 19,556 | 5 | 8 | 6 |