Ukraine was represented at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2025 with the song "", written by Svitlana Tarabarova and performed by Sofiia Nersesian. The Ukrainian participating broadcaster, , selected its entry through the national final – 2025.

Background

Prior to the 2025 contest, Ukraine had participated in the contest nineteen times since its first entry in the . Since then, the country has won the contest on one occasion in with the song "" performed by Anastasiya Petryk. The nation originally opted not to take part in the contest in (due to financial and structural difficulties), but would later be added to the list of participating countries. In , Artem Kotenko competed for Ukraine with the song "Hear Me Now", which ended up in third place out of 17 entries with 203 points.

Before Junior Eurovision

Natsvidbir na Dytiache Yevrobachennia – 2025 – 2025 was the national final format developed by in order to select Ukraine's entry for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2025. The competition consisted of a final held on 12 October 2025, hosted by Anna Tulieva, Masha Kondratenko and Timur Miroshnychenko. The show was broadcast on , as well as on 's online platforms.

The show was watched by 618 thousand viewers in Ukraine for a 2.88% share, marking an increase of 1.77% share compared to the 2024 edition as well as the highest viewership values for a Ukrainian national final since .

Format

The selection of the competing entries for the national final took place over three stages. In the first stage, artists could apply for the competition through an online submission form. For the third year in a row, Svitlana Tarabarova was the music producer of the event, who was in charge of reviewing the received submissions and selecting a longlist of 15 participants, announced on 21 July 2025. In the second stage, the longlisted artists were assessed by competition producers Tarabarova, Anton Pozhydaiev and Danylo Diemiekhin alongside Alyona Alyona (who represented Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 with Jerry Heil) and Timur Miroshnychenko, at an event labeled as the "star school", which took place at the Recording House of Radio Ukraine in Kyiv, where they attended vocal lessons, stage workshops, choreography classes and sessions with psychologists to help them manage performance anxiety, with twelve acts, announced on 8 September, proceeding to the next stage of the competition, then nine acts, announced on 21 September, advancing further, and eventually six acts, announced on 28 September, qualifying for the final. The third stage consisted of Tarabarova and Alyona Alyonathe head songwriters of the competitionwriting and assigning six original songs for the finalists; no original song submitted by a competing artist made the final.

The "star school" and finalist selection process were documented in the show ("Junior Eurovision diaries"), consisting of six broadcasts hosted by Miroshnychenko and Tulieva and aired weekly on between 7 September and 5 October 2025. The six selected artists took part in a final on 12 October 2025, where the winner was determined by a 50/50 combination of jury and public votesthe latter being cast through the application over two phases of voting and taking precedence in the event of a tie.

Competing entries The submission process for interested artists aged between nine and fourteen was open between 16 June and 10 July 2025. All submissions required participants to enter covers of two songs and a separate introduction video; however, artists were also allowed to submit original songs for consideration. Complete submissions were not given precedence, with reserving the right to replace a song submitted by an eventual finalist with a new entry of its choice if such a case was to occur. At the closing of the submission process, 510 applications had been received. The producers also reserved the option to form one act by combining multiple acts that had reached the top nine stage, which was later invoked. The songs were released on the official Eurovision Ukraine YouTube channel on 29 September.

+ Artist Top 12 Top 9 Top 6 Result Anhelina HlohusYesFinalist Artem Manzhura No colspan="2" Eliminated Kateryna Vatan YesNo Eliminated Kyrylo Pariienko No colspan="2" Eliminated Likeriia Chyrva Yes Finalist Mariia Sviiazova Yes Withdrew Yes No Eliminated Oleksandr and Davyd Podliashchuk Yes No Eliminated Olha Nesterko Yes Finalist Oliviia Tkachyk Yes No Eliminated Riehina KulynenkoNo colspan="2" Eliminated Sofiia Nersesian Yes Finalist Vladyslav Danilevskyi Yes No Eliminated Vsevolod Skryma Yes Finalist Zlata Ivaniv and Vladyslav Vasytskyi Yes Finalist

+ participating entries Artist Song Songwriter(s) Anhelina Hlohus "" Aliona Savranenko Likeriia Chyrva "" Aliona Savranenko Olha Nesterko "" Svitlana Tarabarova Sofiia Nersesian "" Svitlana Tarabarova Vsevolod Skryma "Young Heart"Svitlana Tarabarova Zlata Ivaniv and Vladyslav Vasytskyi ""

Final The final took place on 12 October 2025. The members of the jury were: Michelle Andrade (singer and television presenter), Natela Chkhartishvili-Zatsarynna (general producer of M1 and M2) and (singer-songwriter). In addition to the competing entries, the guest performers included Artem Kotenko with "Hear Me Now", Tarabarova and Berestovyi with "", Alyona Alyona with "", Ziferblat with "Bird of Pray" and Masha Kondratenko with a medley of her songs, after which the finalists performed a common song titled "" alongside Alyona Alyona and Tarabarova. 190,071 Ukrainians ultimately voted on the app. Ten-year-old Kyiv-born Ukrainian-Armenian singer Sofiia Nersesian was declared the winner with the song "".

+Final12 October 2025 Artist Song Jury Public vote Total Place Votes Points 1 Likeriia Chyrva "" 1 35,622 4 5 5 2 Olha Nesterko "" 2 40,874 5 7 3 3 Sofiia Nersesian "" 5 48,074 6 11 1 4 Zlata Ivaniv and Vladyslav Vasytskyi "" 6 22,471 2 8 2 5 Vsevolod Skryma "Young Heart" 3 18,455 1 4 6 6 Anhelina Hlohus "" 4 24,575 3 7 4

Preparation On 28 November 2025, a revamped version of "" was released, featuring updated instrumentals and a reworked chorus that placed the English lyrics before the Ukrainian ones, with the latter change added at Sofiia's request.

At Junior Eurovision The Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2025 took place at the Gymnastic Hall of Olympic City in Tbilisi, Georgia on 13 December 2025. On 4 November 2025, an allocation draw was held to determine the running order of the contest, ahead of which each song was classified into a different category based on its musical style and tempo. Ukraine was drawn to perform in position 6, following the entry from the and before the entry from .

In Ukraine, the event was broadcast on with commentary by Timur Miroshnychenko.

Voting

The spokesperson for the Ukrainian jury was Artem Kotenko, who represented . Ukraine placed second in the final, scoring 177 points; 98 points from the online vote, which it won, and 79 points from the juries. This marked Ukraine's best result in the contest since .

+Points awarded to UkraineScoreCountry12 points10 points8 points7 points6 points5 points4 points3 points2 points1 pointUkraine received 98 points from the online vote

+Points awarded by UkraineScoreCountry12 points10 points8 points7 points6 points5 points4 points3 points2 points1 point

Detailed voting results The following members comprised the Ukrainian jury:

Anhelina Hlohuschild singer, finalist of in and 2025 choreographer and dancer Masha Kondratenkosinger-songwriter, finalist of Vsevolod Skrymachild singer, finalist of – 2025 singer-songwriter and music producer, head songwriter of – 2024

+ Draw Country Juror A Juror B Juror C Juror D Juror E Rank Points 01 10 9 10 9 9 11 02 13 10 7 12 8 12 03 17 17 14 16 16 16 04 9 8 6 7 7 8 3 05 1 2 2 1 1 1 12 06 07 16 16 15 15 14 15 08 4 3 5 11 3 4 7 09 7 7 9 3 11 7 4 10 6 6 8 6 4 5 6 11 14 14 16 10 10 13 12 11 5 4 13 5 6 5 13 12 12 13 14 15 14 14 8 11 11 4 13 10 1 15 5 13 12 5 12 9 2 16 15 15 17 17 17 17 17 2 1 1 2 2 2 10 18 3 4 3 8 6 3 8

Notes

References