Natsionalnyi Vidbir (Ukrainian: Національний відбір, IPA:[nɐts⁽ʲ⁾ioˈnɑlʲnɪjwid⁽ʲ⁾ˈbir]; meaning "National Selection"), informally known as Vidbir, is a Ukrainian musical competition originally organized by Suspilne and STB, which determines the Ukrainian representative at the Eurovision Song Contest. In late August 2021, it was announced that the two broadcasters had terminated their partnership, and that Suspilne was looking for a new selection format for the Eurovision Song Contest 2022, thus bringing an end to the original concept for Vidbir.[1] In October 2021, Suspilne announced that the 2022 edition of Vidbir would be organized by it alone under a new format.[2]
In the first year of the show, the local record by SMS voting was set by receiving 344,268 unique votes, 37.77% of which supported Jamala,[3] who eventually became the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2016.
Over the 8 editions of Vidbir, 11 music experts have been on the jury, two of them Ruslana and Jamala are Eurovision winners in 2004 and 2016 respectively. Jamala is the only member of the Vidbir cast who has participated in every edition, as a contestant in 2016, as a jury member in 2017—2019, 2022—2025 and as an interval act in 2020.
Several participants have had different roles in different editions of Vidbir. Julia Sanina was a participant in 2016, a jury member in 2023 and a presenter in 2024. Tina Karol was a jury member in 2020 and 2022, as well as a music producer in 2025. Kateryna Pavlenko is the winner of Vidbir 2020, host of the 2023 edition and will be one of the jurors of 2025 edition.
Starting from 2023, the participants of the expert jury are selected through the Ukrainian e-governance app Diia.
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 tele-vote and an expert jury. Ties were decided in favour of the entries that received higher scores from the public tele-vote.[5] "1944" is the first Eurovision Song Contest song to feature lyrics in the Crimean Tatar language. 382,602 votes were registered by the tele-vote during the show.[6] In addition to the performances of the competing entries, 2016 Irish Eurovision entrantNicky Byrne performed the 2016 Irish entry "Sunlight" as a guest.
Final took place on 24 February 2018. Special guests included Mikolas Josef and Madame Monsieur. 179,455 unique votes were received from SMS and App voting.
The final took place on 23 February 2019 with special guests Lake Malawi and Bilal Hassani. More than 167,500 unique votes were received from SMS and app voting. Maruv was declared the winner after receiving the most votes among the six finalists. On 26 February 2019, three days after the final was aired, Ukraine withdrew from the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 after Maruv and UA:PBC were unable to reach an agreement on her participation in the contest as a result of controversy.[7][8]
In this edition, the public determined a wildcard entry through an online vote.[11] During the show, aired on 3 February 2024, the voting app crashed, causing the voting window to be extended to the following day.
^Ukraine withdrew from the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 after Maruv and Suspilne were unable to reach an agreement on her participation in the contest as a result of controversy.
^Alina Pash won Vidbir 2022 but was disqualified after it was discovered that her representative had provided Suspilne with a falsified travel certificate.
^Ukraine was unable to host the 2023 contest due to security concerns resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The United Kingdom, as the second-placing country in the 2022 contest, hosted on Ukraine's behalf, with Ukraine automatically qualifying for the 2023 final as the previous year's winning country.
^Runner-up of Vidbir 2016 as a lead vocalist of The Hardkiss.
