He was disqualified in November for hacking the voting system, but contestant Ruslan Kuznetsov may still win the Ukrainian Wildcard vote. If he does, he will secure a place in the Ukrainian National Final.
In November Eurovisionary reported that two acts were disqualified from the Ukrainian Wildcard vote due to evidence of hacking and using bots to place votes. The two acts disqualified were Ruslan Kuznetsov with his song Deep Shivers and Aghiazma with the song Zombie Dogs. This meant that the new leader was Denis Povaliy. Denis had scored 10202 votes with his song Written On Your Heart. But now it seems that Ruslan Kuznetsov may still win the wildcard vote after all according to Ukrainian news.
After the disqualification Kuznetsov met with the management of the channel, but they refused to resume the online vote. They instead annulled the votes which meant that he had to start from the beginning. However, this did not prevent Ruslan from occupying the first position in the casting. After heavily campaigning on social media he soon surpassed the other contestants.
Feeling positive about his potential wildcard victory Kuznetsov said “I will be a participant of Eurovision because I’m in first place in the poll. The jury appreciated my song. So most likely, 99 percent, I will participate”
Ukraine National Selection
Last year’s Eurovision winner Jamala along with Andriy Danylko (Verka Serduchka) and Konstantin Meladze are preparing to judge in the televised National Final. The semi finals are scheduled to take place on the 4th, 11th and 18th of February with the final on the 25th of February. The acts taking place in the televised selection will include the winner of the wildcard vote along with shortlisted artists who attended auditions scheduled by the broadcaster.
The wild card vote ended on the 11th January and the winner will be confirmed on 15.01.2017 at midnight local time (23:00 CET/22:00 GMT).
You can listen to Kuznetsov’s song Deep Shivers below which may compete in the televised National Final.
https://youtu.be/iClrBQx0afc
