Ukraine was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 with the song "1944", written and performed by Jamala. The Ukrainian participating broadcaster, the National Television Company of Ukraine (NTU), organised a national final in order to select its entry for the contest in collaboration with commercial broadcaster STB. NTU returned to the contest after withdrawing from the due to financial and political reasons related to the Russo-Ukrainian War.

The national selection consisted of two semi-finals, held on 6 and 13 February 2016, and a final, held on 21 February 2016; nine entries competed in each semi-final with the top three from each semi-final advancing to the final. In the final, "1944" performed by Jamala was selected as the winner after tying for first place following the combination of votes from a three-member jury panel and a public televote—the tie was decided in Jamala's favour after "1944" scored the highest with the public. "1944" is the first Eurovision Song Contest song to feature lyrics in the Crimean Tatar language. The Ukrainian entry caused controversy and garnered international media interest both for Jamala, a Ukrainian singer of Crimean Tatar descent, and the song "1944", which was inspired by the story of her great-grandmother during the 1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars in the Soviet Union under the rule of Joseph Stalin. Despite media reports that the song could be disqualified due to its alleged political overtones, the Eurovision Song Contest Reference Group cleared the song for the competition and stated that neither the title nor the lyrics of the song contained political speech.

Ukraine was drawn to compete in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 12 May 2016. Performing during the show in position 14, "1944" was announced among the top 10 entries of the second semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 14 May. It was later revealed that Ukraine placed second out of the 18 participating countries in the semi-final with 287 points. In the final, Ukraine performed in position 21 and placed first out of the 26 participating countries, winning the contest with 534 points. This was Ukraine's second win in the Eurovision Song Contest; their first victory was in .

Background

Prior to the 2016 contest, the National Television Company of Ukraine (NTU) had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest representing Ukraine twelve times since its first entry , winning the contest with the song "Wild Dances" performed by Ruslana. Following the introduction of semi-finals for the , it had managed to qualify to final in every contest they participated in thus far. Ukraine had been the runner-up in the contest on two occasions: with the song "Dancing Lasha Tumbai" performed by Verka Serduchka and with the song "Shady Lady" performed by Ani Lorak. Its least successful result had been 19th place, achieved , with the song "Razom nas bahato" performed by GreenJolly.

As part of its duties as participating broadcaster, NTU organises the selection of its entry in the Eurovision Song Contest and broadcasts the event in the country. The broadcaster confirmed its intentions to participate at the 2016 contest on 16 September 2015. In the past, NTU had alternated between both internal selections and national finals in order to select its entry. Between 2011 and 2014, the broadcaster had set up national finals with several artists to choose both the song and performer, with both the public and a panel of jury members involved in the selection. In September 2014, NTU announced that it would not participate in the because of the unstable financial and political situation caused by the conflict in east Ukraine. Along with the announcement of their withdrawal, NTU revealed that it had discussed the matter with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), and that its absence would be limited to one year only with an expected return in 2016. On 18 November 2015, it was announced that NTU would collaborate with commercial broadcaster STB in order to organise a national final to select its 2016 entry. General director of NTU Zurab Alasania praised the collaboration between the two broadcasters stating that they would do everything possible for the Ukrainian entry to represent the country successfully. Likewise, CEO of STB Vladimir Borodyansky stated that together the broadcasters would create "a national movement" by organising a selection that would involve the best producers, directors, and choreographers.

Before Eurovision

was the first edition of which selected the Ukrainian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2016. The competition took place at the STB Studios in Hostomel, Kyiv Oblast and consisted of two semi-finals held on 6 and 13 February 2016 and a final on 21 February 2016. All shows in the competition were hosted by Dmytro Tankovich and Oleksandr Pedan and broadcast on both UA:Pershyi and STB as well as online via NTU's YouTube broadcasts.

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 or by attending a scheduled audition during designated dates. Eighteen acts were selected and announced on 26 January 2016. The second stage consisted of the televised semi-finals which took place on 6 and 13 February 2016 with nine acts competing in each show. Three acts were selected to advance from each semi-final based on the 50/50 combination of votes from a public televote and an expert jury. Both the public televote and the expert jury assigned scores ranging from 1 (lowest) to 9 (highest) and the three entries that had the highest number of points following the combination of these scores advanced to the final. The third stage was the final, which took place on 21 February 2016 and featured the six acts that qualified from the semi-finals vying to represent Ukraine in Stockholm. The winner was selected via the 50/50 combination of votes from a public televote and an expert jury. Both the public televote and the expert jury assigned scores ranging from 1 (lowest) to 6 (highest) and the entry that had the highest number of points following the combination of these scores was declared the winner. Viewers participating in the public televote during the three live shows had the opportunity to submit a single vote per phone number for each of the participating entries via SMS. In the event of a tie during the semi-finals and final, the tie was decided in favour of the entry that received the highest score from the public televote.

The jury panel that voted during the three shows consisted of: Konstantin Meladze – Composer and producer Ruslana – singer-songwriter, winner of Eurovision for Ukraine in 2004 Andriy Danylko – comedian and singer, represented Ukraine in 2007 as the drag artist Verka Serduchka

Crimean Tatar leaders pledged to enable people in Crimea to vote in the national selection; according to Crimean Tatar public figure Refat Chubarov: "If Crimeans are not able to vote in such Ukrainian competitions, we are silently agreeing with those who say Crimea is not part of Ukraine." In 2014 Crimea was unilaterally annexed by Russia.

Competing entries Artists and composers had the opportunity to submit their entries via an online submission form which accepted entries between 19 November 2015 and 20 January 2016. In addition, interested performers could also attend auditions that were held between 5 and 20 December 2015 in the following cities and locations: 5–6 December 2015: Zaporizhia (Hotel "Inturist") and Kharkiv (Hotel "Kharkiv") 12–13 December 2015: Odesa (Hotel "OK") and Lviv (Hotel "Dnister") 19–20 December 2015: Dnipropetrovsk ("Parle" Conference Centre) and Kyiv (STB Headquarters)

Composer and producer Konstantin Meladze was assigned as the music producer of the show and was the lead in reviewing the received submissions and shortlisting entries to compete in the national final. On 26 January 2016, the eighteen selected competing acts were announced. The eighteen acts were allocated to one of two semi-finals during a draw that took place on 27 January, which was hosted by Ruslana. Among the competing artists was Anastasia Prikhodko, who represented with the song "Mamo". Viktoria Petryk represented .

Artist Song Songwriter(s) Aida Nikolaychuk "Inner Power" Alena Melnik, Evheniy Matyushenko Alloise "Crown" Alloise, Alexey Casual Man Anastasia Prikhodko "I Am Free Now" Shushan Sargsyan, Mykola Brovchenko Arkadiy Voytyuk "Vse v tobi" () Arkadiy Voytyuk Brunettes Shoot Blondes "Every Monday" Andrey Kovalev Jamala "1944" Jamala Japanda "Anime" Alisa Kosmos Lavika "Hold Me" Ivan Danchenko, Lavika, Freddy Newton NuAngels "Higher" Alexander Bard, Andreas Öhrn, Chris Wahle Peaks of Kings "Last Hope" Valentine Peak Pringlez "Easy to Love" Anna Korsun Pur:Pur "We Do Change" Nata Smirina, Evgeniy Zhebko Sunsay "Love Manifest" Andrey Zaporozhets, Yevgeny Filatov Svitlana Tarabarova "Never Again" Svitlana Tarabarova The Hardkiss "Helpless" Yulia Sanina, Valeriy "Val" Bebko Tonya Matvienko "Tin Whistle" Antonina Matviyenko, Maria Gedroits Viktoria Petryk "Overload" Ylva Persson, Linda Persson, Niclas Haglund, William Taylor Vladislav Kurasov "I'm Insane" Vladislav Kurasov, Natalia Rostova

Shows Semi-finals Two semi-finals took place on 6 and 13 February 2016. In each semi-final nine acts competed and the top three entries determined following the combination of votes from a public televote and an expert jury advanced to the final of the competition, while the remaining six entries were eliminated. In addition to the performances of the competing entries, Ivan, who would represent , performed his entry "Help You Fly", and Barei, who would represent , performed her entry "Say Yay!", as guests in the first and second semi-finals respectively.

+ Semi-final 1 – 6 February 2016 Artist Song Jury Televote Total Place Percentage Points 1 Anastasia Prikhodko "I Am Free Now" 4 2.89% 3 7 7 2 The Hardkiss "Helpless" 7 16.03% 8 15 2 3 Tonya Matvienko "Tin Whistle" 5 2.83% 2 7 8 4 Vladislav Kurasov "I'm Insane" 3 3.91% 4 7 6 5 Lavika "Hold Me" 1 0.73% 1 2 9 6 Jamala "1944" 9 49.22% 9 18 1 7 Aida Nikolaychuk "Inner Power" 2 10.41% 7 9 5 8 Svitlana Tarabarova "Never Again" 6 7.24% 6 12 4 9 Brunettes Shoot Blondes "Every Monday" 8 6.74% 5 13 3

+ Semi-final 2 – 13 February 2016 Artist Song Jury Televote Total Place Percentage Points 1 Arkadiy Voytyuk "Vse v tobi" 4 5.34% 6 10 4 2 Alloise "Crown" 6 1.95% 2 8 6 3 Japanda "Anime" 1 1.47% 1 2 9 4 NuAngels "Higher" 7 14.69% 8 15 2 5 Pur:Pur "We Do Change" 8 10.19% 7 15 3 6 Peaks of Kings "Last Hope" 3 3.38% 3 6 8 7 Viktoria Petryk "Overload" 2 4.64% 4 6 7 8 Pringlez "Easy to Love" 5 5.30% 5 10 5 9 Sunsay "Love Manifest" 9 53.03% 9 18 1

Final The final took place on 21 February 2016. The six entries that qualified from the semi-finals competed. The winner, "1944" performed by Jamala, was selected through the combination of votes from a public televote and an expert jury. Ties were decided in favour of the entries that received higher scores from the public televote. "1944" is the first Eurovision Song Contest song to feature lyrics in the Crimean Tatar language. 382,602 votes were registered by the televote during the show. In addition to the performances of the competing entries, Nicky Byrne, who would represent , performed his entry "Sunlight" as a guest. The Hardkiss and Jamala were tied at 11 points each but since Jamala received the most votes from the public she was declared the winner.