OGAE Ukraine asks for Russia to be removed from the OGAE Song Contest 2022

The official Eurovision fan club of OGAE Ukraine has called on OGAE International to disqualify Russia from its annual OGAE Song Contest.

For those not familiar, the OGAE International Network (French: Organisation Générale des Amateurs de l'Eurovision, English: General Organization of Eurovision Fans) is the network of official Eurovision fan clubs across the world.

The OGAE Song Contest sees national clubs enter an original song from their nation released in the previous 12 months and sung in one of the country's official languages.

The songs competing were released yesterday with Russia represented by Leonid Agutin and Vladimir Presnjakov with ‘ДНК [DNA]’

OGAE Ukraine released a statement on their Instagram page today.

Selected parts of the message are below:

"OGAE Ukraine asks to ban representatives from Russia, as well as their club, from participating in the OGAE Song Contest.

The participants from OGAE Ukraine are shocked by the participation of Russia....While the members of our club are losing their homes and relatives, because Russian shells fall directly into the areas of their cities where they live.

We call on OGAE International to disqualify Russia. If Russia is not disqualified, then OGAE Ukraine will be forced to withdraw from the OGAE Song Contest."

You can read the full statement below or on OGAE Ukraine's Instagram account's stories.

The OGAE Song Contest is being hosted by OGAE Australia after Tones and I won in 2021 with 'Fly Away'.

The full details of the contest were revealed this week.

For continued updates on all the Eurovision news follow Aussievision on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. All links at: https://linktr.ee/aussievisionnet