Ukraine will be represented at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2026 with the song "Not a Lullaby", written by Svitlana Tarabarova and performed by Erika Kolesnichenko. The Ukrainian participating broadcaster, , organised the national final in order to select its entry for the contest.

Background

Prior to the 2026 contest, Ukraine had participated in the contest twenty 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 , Sofiia Nersesian competed for Ukraine with the song "Motanka", which ended up in 2nd place out of 18 entries with 177 points.

Before Junior Eurovision

was the national final format developed by in order to select its entry for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2026. The competition consisted of a final to be held on 26 September 2026 hosted by Anna Tulieva, Timur Miroshnychenko and Anastasiia Dymyd (who represented Ukraine in the ). The show was broadcast on , as well as on 's online platforms.

Format

The selection of the competing entries for the national final will take place over three stages. In the first stage, artists could apply for the competition through an online submission form. For the fourth year in a row, Svitlana Tarabarova is the music producer of the event, who is in charge of reviewing the received submissions and selecting a longlist of 15 participants, announced on 24 July 2026. In the second stage, longlisted artists attended live auditions, which were held in a public format for the first time on 26 July at the Respublika Park mall in Kyiv. They were assessed by a three-member expert council consisting of music producer Svitlana Tarabarova, Alyona Alyona (who represented Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 with Jerry Heil), and singer Mélovin (who represented Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018). From these auditions, ten artists were chosen to advance to the "Star School" stage.

The process of narrowing the ten "Star School" participants down to six finalists was documented in the show ("Junior Eurovision diaries"), directed by singer and director Vlad Sheriff. During the first two episodes, one artist was eliminated per broadcast. In the third episode, two artists were eliminated. The remaining six finalists were then randomly assigned to either Svitlana Tarabarova or Alyona Alyona, who were responsible for writing original songs for the televised pre-selection. Throughout the show, various guest mentors were invited to train the artists in vocal lessons, stage workshops, choreography classes and sessions with psychologists to help them manage performance anxiety. At the end of each episode, these mentors helped select which artists would advance to the next round. The guest mentors included actor Pavlo Tekuchev, singer Tayanna, choreographer Ivan Yurkiv, singer Laud, and stage directors Lesia Podolianko and Illia Osiadlyi.

The third stage consists of Suspilne assigning specially-made songs written by Tarabarova and Alyona Alyona; no original song submitted by a competing artist made the final.

The six selected acts will take part in a final on 26 September 2026, where the winner will be determined by a 50/50 combination of jury and public votesthe latter being cast through the application over two phases of voting.

Competing entries The submission process for interested artists aged between nine and fourteen was open between 16 June and 8 July 2026. All submissions required participants to enter covers of two songs and a separate introduction video; however, artists are also allowed to submit original songs for consideration. Precedence was not given to complete submissions, with also reserving the right to replace a song submitted by an eventual finalist with a new entry of its choice if such a case occurs. At the closing of the submission process, 642 applications had been received, with roughly 47 of them also including an original song. +Longlisted artistsArtistTop 10Top 8Top 6Result Anastasiia PoshedinaYes Finalist Dmytro KarabetYesFinalist Erika KolesnichenkoYesFinalist Karina Shtefanesa Yes No Eliminated Kateryna Vatan No colspan="2" Eliminated Mariia Blyzniuk No colspan="2" Eliminated Marko SerdynskyiYes Finalist Oliviia Tkachyk Yes No Eliminated Roman DoroshenkoYes Finalist Sofiia Dupelych Yes No Eliminated Sofiia Nazarenko No colspan="2" Eliminated Sofiia and Veronika Vozniak No colspan="2" Eliminated Vladyslav Danilevskyi No colspan="2" Eliminated Vyhor Yes No Eliminated Zlata SolonenkoYes Finalist

+ participating entries Artist SongSongwriter(s)Anastasiia Poshedina "" Aliona SavranenkoDmytro Karabet "" Svitlana TarabarovaErika Kolesnichenko "" Svitlana TarabarovaMarko Serdynskyi "" Aliona SavranenkoRoman Doroshenko "Say Hello"Svitlana TarabarovaZlata Solonenko "Who Am I"

Final The final took place on 26 September 2026. The members of the jury were: Dmytro "Pianoboy" Shurov (singer and pianist) and Skylerr (singer). In addition to the competing entries, the guest performers included Sofiia Nersesianalongside the finalist and the choir with "", Tarabarova and Sofiia Nersesian with "", with "", Alyona Alyona and Skylerr with ""alongside the children of the Foundationand Pianoboy with "". 77,688 Ukrainians ultimately voted on the app. Due to a tie-break, where the public vote prevailed, eleven-year-old singer Erika Kolesnichenko was declared the winner with the song "". +Final26 September 2026 Artist Song JuryPublicvote Total Place 1 Anastasiia Poshedina "" 2 3 5 4 2 Roman Doroshenko "Say Hello" 3 1 4 5 3 Erika Kolesnichenko "" 5 6 11 1 4 Dmytro Karabet "" 1 2 3 6 5 Marko Serdynskyi "" 4 4 8 3 6 Zlata Solonenko "Who Am I" 6 5 11 2

Preparation On 29 September 2026, Tarabarova revealed the title of his entry would be changed from "" to "Not a Lullaby", alongside a revamp of the song.

Notes

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