“It’s a fantastic victory. You’ve made a great many people happy,” Poroshenko said during the award ceremony late Monday.
The 32-year-old’s song, 1944, on the deportation of Crimean Tatars under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, won the Euroviosion contest at a time when Crimean Tatars decry similar repression from Russia.
Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in March 2014 following a contested referendum. Since then, the region’s Tatar minority has regularly denounced growing repression.
Jamala became the second Ukrainian singer to win Eurovision, after Ruslana Lyzhychko won the 2004 contest held in Turkey with her song `Wild`.
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