Robbie Williams offers to represent Russia at Eurovision.

British singer Robbie Williams jokingly offered to represent Russia in Eurovision, in an interview broadcast Monday on Russian television. "I would represent Russia at Eurovision. Courage Russia can win!" He said in an interview on Channel One official channel. But the joke did not like Joseph Kobzon, a pro-Putin deputy and also known as a singer, which he called "idiot" Williams offer. "We do not need the British to defend our culture," he said the agency told RIA Novosi, arguing that Russia "has its own singers." Russia's participation in the Eurovision contest, expected in May in Kiev, capital of Ukraine, is in the air by the conflict between the two countries.

Ukraine threatens to veto the participation of Yulia Samoilova, the Russian representative, because it gave a concert in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia. Samoilova, 27 and uses a wheelchair, was chosen in a contest on Channel One by the public vote. In 2014 he starred in a ceremony of the Paralympic Games in the Russian city of Sochi.