Jerry Heil is a Ukrainian singer and songwriter who reached a European audience without abandoning the language, humour and musical instincts that first made her popular at home. Born Yana Oleksandrivna Shemaieva, she is known professionally as Jerry Heil, a stage name that began on the internet long before it appeared on a Eurovision stage. Her story is not a sudden overnight breakthrough. It is a slower arc: years of covers and vlogs, a professional debut in 2017, a viral hit in 2019, three very different attempts at Ukraine’s Eurovision selection, a third-place finish at Eurovision 2024, and then a return to that same national selection in 2026. That return is what makes her recent career so interesting. Many artists treat a Eurovision result as a finishing line. Heil treated it as one chapter, and then went back to compete again. The images in this article are AI-generated illustrations, labelled as such. The biographical details are drawn from Wikipedia, which records Heil’s birth on 21 October 1995 in Vasylkiv, her YouTube channel launch in 2012, her professional debut in 2017, and her third-place finish at the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 with alyona alyona.
Heil’s place in Ukrainian pop starts with range. She writes songs, she sings them, and she has built a career that moves between playful pop, folk-influenced vocal writing, electronic production and large collaborative projects. She is also a songwriter in the fuller sense: on her best-known song, she is credited among its writers, not merely as its performer.
Jerry Heil Biography at a Glance
Yana Oleksandrivna Shemaieva was born on 21 October 1995 in Vasylkiv, in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. She performs as Jerry Heil, and her listed occupations are singer, songwriter and YouTuber. Her professional music career is generally dated from 2017, while her YouTube activity began earlier, in 2012. Her genre is most often described as pop, although that single label does not capture the folk, electronic and classical vocal influences that appear across her later work. Her early professional label association was Vidlik Records, and later label associations reported for her include Best Music and Nova Music, the latter described as her own label project.
The name itself has an internet-era origin. Reports of her early online life say that, at the age of 15, she first used the name Jerry Mouse on the social platform VKontakte, before changing it to Heil, a surname she said she found among American surnames online. She has herself described the backstory in self-deprecating terms. That detail matters because it captures something about her early identity as an artist: she did not arrive through a traditional talent-show-to-record-deal pipeline alone. She arrived as someone who was already building an audience, a voice and a sense of humour online, and who then learned how to turn that presence into original songs.
Her education also helps explain the vocal character of her later music. She attended the R. Glier Kyiv Institute of Music and the Kyiv Conservatory, institutions associated with formal musical training in Kyiv. That background does not make her a classical singer in the concert-hall sense, but it does help explain why her later songs can move between straightforward pop melody, layered voices and more ambitious vocal writing. In interviews and profiles, her musical mission has been described as bringing Ukrainian traditions and culture to a wider audience, and that ambition is audible in the way folk colour enters even her most modern-sounding tracks.
Early Life, Education and the Stage Name
Vasylkiv, where Heil was born, is a city outside Kyiv, and her early years were therefore close to, but not inside, the capital’s music industry. That distance is relevant to her YouTube beginning. Rather than depending on Kyiv studios or television exposure from the start, she could record, post and learn in public. The platform rewarded consistency, personality and a willingness to try material that a conventional early-career singer might not have risked. Covers gave her a way to show vocal ability and taste. Vlogs gave audiences a sense of who she was beyond a single song. Together, they built the foundation for an original career: people were not only hearing a voice, they were following a person.
Her reported musical education at the R. Glier Kyiv Institute of Music and the Kyiv Conservatory adds a second layer to that story. Formal training can sometimes pull a young pop artist towards technique at the expense of personality. In Heil’s case, the two strands seem to have stayed in balance. Her early professional songs are direct and often funny, while her later work shows a growing interest in vocal arrangement and in Ukrainian folk material. That combination — a trained voice used in the service of pop songs rather than displayed for its own sake — is one reason her music has travelled beyond a single audience. Listeners who enjoy bright pop can follow the melody, while listeners who pay attention to harmony and vocal texture can hear something more deliberate underneath it.
The stage name illustrates how deliberately internet-native her career has been. Jerry Heil is not a name chosen to sound like a traditional pop star. It is a name with a slightly offbeat, memorable quality, and it has stayed with her from teenage social media use into international competition. In a music industry where rebranding is common, that continuity is notable. The audience that found her through covers did not have to learn a new identity when she released original music. The name, the humour and the directness carried over.
YouTube Beginnings in 2012
Heil launched her YouTube channel in 2012, publishing vlogs and musical covers. The covers included songs by Ukrainian and international artists, among them Okean Elzy, The Hardkiss, Twenty One Pilots and Kodaline, according to reports of her early channel. That choice of material is revealing. It was not a narrow set of easy songs chosen only to show range. It mixed Ukrainian rock and pop with international alternative and pop acts, suggesting a listener whose taste was already broad. A cover, at its best, is also a form of interpretation: the singer must find a way to make someone else’s song sound like her own without losing what made it work. Heil’s early channel gave her years of practice in exactly that skill.
YouTube also shaped her relationship with her audience in a way that television alone rarely does. Viewers could return week after week, comment, share and watch an artist develop. For a young singer without a major early breakthrough, that steady feedback mattered. It allowed her to test humour, phrasing and song choices in public, and it meant that by the time she signed a professional deal, she was not starting from silence. She was converting an existing audience into listeners for original music, a transition that many internet-era artists find difficult. Heil’s version of that transition worked because the original songs that followed did not abandon the personality of the covers. They extended it.
YouTube alone does not explain it. Many singers build followings online and never make the leap to a sustained recording career. Heil did, and the next stage of her story — a label deal, a debut EP, television exposure and then a genuinely national hit — shows the point at which an online presence became a professional catalogue. The platform was the beginning, not the whole career.
The Professional Debut: Vidlik Records and De Mii Dim
Heil began her professional music career in 2017, releasing her debut extended play, De mii dim, translated as Where’s My Home, with Vidlik Records. The EP arrived in October 2017, according to reports of her early discography. Four songs may seem like a modest beginning, but an EP is often a clearer test than a single: it asks whether an artist has more than one idea, more than one mood, and a voice that can hold attention across several tracks. De mii dim established Heil as an original songwriter-performer rather than only a cover artist, and it gave her a professional release to build on.
The following year brought a different kind of exposure. In 2018, Heil auditioned for X-Factor Ukraine, reaching the boot camp phase before being eliminated. That result is sometimes misremembered as a failure, but in career terms it was something else: a national television audience, a test of performing under pressure, and a reminder that a single competition does not define a singer. After her elimination, she returned to releasing music, including the singles Kava and Postil, the latter accompanied by her debut music video. Those releases kept her visible and kept her catalogue growing at a moment when a less determined artist might have paused.
This period set a pattern. Heil did not depend on one door opening. When a television route closed, she went back to singles and videos. When an EP had introduced her, she followed it with new material rather than waiting for a perfect next step. That working method — steady releases, a clear public identity and a willingness to keep competing — would reappear throughout her Vidbir story. It is also why her later breakthrough, when it came, did not feel like a lucky accident. It felt like the result of work that had already been happening for years.
The 2019 Breakthrough: Okhrana Otmiena and Ya Yana
In 2019, Heil released the single Okhrana otmiena, written in Ukrainian as Okhrana, Otmena and often stylised with a hashtag as #Okhrana_Otmena. The song became a top-five hit in Ukraine, according to chart reporting of her early singles, and it changed the scale of her career. It was playful, catchy and instantly shareable, the kind of song that travels through social media as well as radio. For many Ukrainian listeners, it was the first Heil song they knew by title, even if they had not followed her YouTube channel. For Heil, it proved that her internet humour and pop instincts could produce a national hit, not only an online following.
Her debut studio album, Ya yana, translated as I’m Yana, followed in October 2019. The album included Okhrana otmiena alongside songs such as Vilna kasa, Natverkay and Bili krosy, titles that show the same direct, everyday-language pop approach that made the single work. An album, unlike a viral single, asks a listener to spend longer with an artist. Ya yana answered that test by presenting Heil as a songwriter with a point of view, not only a performer with one catchy chorus. The title itself — I’m Yana — is a statement of identity, a reminder that behind the stage name is a real person with a real name, and that the songs are, in part, a way of introducing her.
First Vidbir Attempts: Vegan in 2020 and When God Shut the Door
Heil first participated in Vidbir, Ukraine’s national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, in 2020. Her entry was Vegan, and she finished sixth in the final. Vidbir is not a newcomer contest. It regularly features established Ukrainian artists, and a sixth-place finish for a singer still early in her album career was a serious showing, even though it did not lead to Eurovision. It also introduced Heil to an audience that judges songs not only on streaming appeal but on live performance, staging and the ability to represent a country on a European stage.
She returned to Vidbir for the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 cycle, participating in December 2022 with the song When God Shut the Door. This time she finished third. That improvement mattered for two reasons. First, it showed that her first Vidbir appearance had not been a one-off experiment. Second, it placed her among the leading contenders for a contest that Ukraine, as a country, takes seriously, both as a musical event and as a cultural platform. The winner of that cycle was Tvorchi, but Heil’s third place confirmed that she could compete at the top of a national final, not only enter it.
These two results are not a simple ladder — sixth, then third, then a win. Each entry was a different song, with a different mood and a different staging challenge. Vegan drew on a direct, contemporary pop identity. When God Shut the Door asked for something more dramatic and reflective. The fact that Heil could present both, and improve her result while doing so, suggested an artist who was learning how to use a national final as a creative format, not merely as a route to a bigger contest. That learning would become visible in 2024, when she returned not as a solo act but as part of a duo.
A Catalogue Takes Shape: Mandaryny i Oleni, Osobyste and Dai Boh
Between her first Vidbir attempts and her eventual Eurovision breakthrough, Heil continued to release albums and shorter collections that deepened her catalogue. Her second studio album, Mandaryny i oleni, was released on 17 December 2021. The title, which pairs mandarins and deer, carries a seasonal, slightly whimsical quality that fits the playful side of her songwriting, while the album as a whole showed her moving beyond the immediate impact of Ya yana into a more settled album artist. In the same year, she also released the EP Osobyste, a mini-album that gave her space for more personal material alongside her larger album work.
In 2022, she released the joint EP Dai Boh with alyona alyona. That collaboration predates their Eurovision partnership and shows that Teresa and Maria did not come from nowhere. The two artists had already worked together, already understood each other’s strengths, and already had a shared audience. Dai Boh therefore functions as a bridge in her discography: it connects her solo album period to the duo period that would define her international breakthrough. It also shows a willingness to share the spotlight, a quality that matters in a duo performance where balance, rather than dominance, makes the song work.
Other singles from this period help fill out the picture of a working pop artist rather than a singles-only hitmaker. Songs such as Poshta, Mriia, Bomba raketa pushka hranata and Moskal nekrasivyi, the latter featuring Verka Serduchka, show range across humour, direct pop hooks and collaboration. Chart positions for some of these singles were reported in Ukrainian airplay data, but the more durable point is the sheer continuity: Heil was releasing, collaborating and performing through a period that included both the pandemic-era music industry and, from 2022, the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Music made in that context inevitably carries extra weight, and Heil’s later charity-linked and Ukraine-focused work should be read against that background.
The Partnership with alyona alyona
The partnership between Jerry Heil and rapper alyona alyona, whose real name is Aliona Olehivna Savranenko, is central to understanding Eurovision 2024. Alyona alyona had herself built a distinctive career in Ukrainian rap, releasing her first track under her current name in 2018 and her debut album Pushka in 2019. The two artists began performing together after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, according to reporting of their collaboration. That timing matters. Their partnership was not assembled solely for a contest. It grew out of a period in which Ukrainian artists were working together, performing for audiences under extraordinary pressure, and finding ways to keep Ukrainian culture visible.
Musically, the pairing works because the two voices do different things. Heil brings melody, vocal colour and a pop songwriter’s sense of structure. Alyona alyona brings rap flow, direct lyric writing and a commanding stage presence. In Teresa and Maria, those strengths are not simply placed side by side. They are woven together, with rap and sung melody answering each other and building towards a shared chorus. That balance is one reason the song could appeal both to viewers who follow Eurovision for melody and to viewers who respond to performance energy and lyrical directness.
The partnership also shows a different kind of ambition from solo stardom alone. A solo artist returning to Vidbir again and again might have been read as persistence. A solo artist who joins a duo, shares writing credit and shares the stage demonstrates collaboration as a creative choice. When the duo won Vidbir 2024, it was therefore a shared victory, and when they finished third at Eurovision, it was a shared result. Heil’s name is rightly attached to that result, but the story is incomplete without alyona alyona beside it.
Teresa and Maria: What the Song Means
Teresa and Maria was released on 11 January 2024 through Enko Music, and it represented Ukraine at the Eurovision Song Contest 2024. The music was composed by Anton Chilibi and Ivan Klymenko, with lyrics written by Aliona Savranenko and Yana Shemaieva, using their stage names alyona alyona and Jerry Heil. That writing credit is important for a biography: Heil is not only the singer of the song, she is one of its lyricists, and therefore one of the people who shaped what it says.
The title refers to Mother Teresa and the Virgin Mary, but the performers have repeatedly explained that the song is not literally about those two figures. Instead, Teresa and Maria are used as symbols of charity, love and unification. The central idea, as the duo have described it, is that divinity exists within all humans, and that figures remembered as holy were born as human beings. The chorus carries that idea directly: all the divas were born as human beings. In other interviews, the duo described the song as a message of empowerment for Ukrainian women, and as a reminder that people are responsible for their own destiny and that happiness must be sought and created, not merely waited for.
That framing helps explain why the song connected beyond Ukraine. A song that was only about two religious figures might have felt narrow. A song that uses those figures to talk about strength, responsibility, unity and the burdens carried by women — especially Ukrainian women during wartime, many of whom were displaced or carrying sole responsibility for families — could be heard in many countries at once. The duo themselves said that, although they wrote the song as Ukrainian women about Ukraine, everyone in the world could see themselves in the lyrics. That universality, combined with a melody that could be sung along to even by listeners who did not understand every Ukrainian word, is part of why the entry performed so strongly.
The song was performed in Ukrainian and English, and its official music video was released on 4 May 2024, shortly before the contest. The staging, directed for the Eurovision performance by Ukrainian video director Tanu Muiño, developed the black staging of the national final into a version with golden and amber tones, with Heil wearing a dress carrying warrior symbolism and alyona alyona wearing an overcoat. Those visual choices reinforced the song’s themes without turning the performance into a literal illustration. Strength was suggested, not shouted, and the focus remained on the two performers and the song itself.
Winning Vidbir 2024 and Finishing Third at Eurovision
Heil and alyona alyona were announced among the finalists for Vidbir 2024 and went on to win the final on 4 February 2024, earning the right to represent Ukraine at Eurovision. That win was the culmination of Heil’s long Vidbir history: sixth in 2020, third in the 2023 cycle, and now a victory in 2024. It also marked a shift in how she was perceived. She was no longer only a promising solo artist who had come close in a national final. She was a Eurovision representative, with the attention, pressure and opportunity that brings.
At Eurovision itself, held in Malmö, Sweden, the duo qualified from the first semi-final on 7 May 2024, finishing second in that semi-final, and then placed third in the grand final on 11 May 2024 with 453 points. Only Switzerland’s Nemo, with The Code, and Croatia’s Baby Lasagna, with Rim Tim Tagi Dim, finished ahead of them. For Ukraine, a country with a strong Eurovision record — including wins for Ruslana in 2004 with Wild Dances, Jamala in 2016 with 1944, and Kalush Orchestra in 2022 with Stefania — a third-place finish was a significant result, and it placed Heil and alyona alyona among Ukraine’s most successful recent entries.
After Malmö: Arkhetypy and New Collaborations
On 2 May 2025, Heil released her third studio album, Arkhetypy, translated as Archetypes, featuring 16 songs. The album’s most prominent track, according to reporting of its reception, was Z yakoho ty poverkhu neba?, translated as Which Floor of Heaven Are You From?, featuring YARMAK. The album title itself signals ambition: archetypes are recurring patterns, characters and stories that appear across cultures, and an album built around that idea suggests an artist thinking in larger thematic terms than a collection of singles. The move from ironic pop shaped by social-media language towards Ukrainian folklore, polyphonic vocals, electronic production and elements of classical vocal tradition, described in profiles of her later work, is audible in this phase of her career.
Two weeks later, on 16 May 2025, Heil released Sing Like a Siren together with the Dutch symphonic metal band Within Temptation. The song served as the soundtrack to Within Temptation’s documentary The Invisible Force, which followed lead singer Sharon den Adel’s visit to Ukraine and the band’s initiative to support Ukrainian artists. That collaboration is notable for several reasons. It paired Heil with a band from a very different genre, it linked her voice to a documentary about Ukraine, and it showed that her post-Eurovision career was not limited to pop collaborations. A siren, in myth, is a voice that cannot be ignored, and the pairing of a metal band’s scale with Heil’s vocal clarity made the song a distinctive entry in both artists’ catalogues.
Later in 2025, Heil released further singles, including Dodai huchnosti, subtitled 12 points, Earth (Dradada), and Hora with Romanian singer Irina Rimes. The 12 points subtitle is a playful Eurovision reference in itself, a nod to the contest’s scoring system from an artist who knows it well. Hora, as a collaboration with a Romanian artist, also shows the cross-border direction of her later work. She was no longer only a Ukrainian artist singing for Ukraine. She was a Ukrainian artist collaborating across Europe, while still singing primarily in Ukrainian and keeping Ukrainian musical identity at the centre of her work.
Jerry Heil Biography: The Road Back to Vidbir 2026
Vidbir 2026 was held on 7 February 2026, with ten songs competing for the right to represent Ukraine at the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 in Vienna. Suspilne, Ukraine’s national broadcaster, had announced the finalists and their song titles in advance, and Jerry Heil was among them with Catharticus (prayer), often written as CATHARTICUS (prayer). She performed ninth in the running order, after KHAYAT and before ShchukaRyba, in a final that also carried a social mission: that year’s Vidbir raised money for Superhumans, a charity that fundraises for prosthetics for veterans. That context is important. Vidbir is not only a song contest in Ukraine. It is also a national television event that, in recent years, has been used to raise funds for humanitarian causes, including demining in previous years.
The final result placed Heil third. LELÉKA won with Ridnym, translated as To Relatives, scoring the maximum points from both the jury and the public vote, for a total of 20 points. LAUD finished second with Lightkeeper, on 18 points. Heil finished third with Catharticus (prayer), scoring 8 points from the jury and 8 points from the public vote, for a total of 16 points. Mr. Vel was fourth, KHAYAT fifth, and the remaining finalists followed behind. The result meant that Heil did not return to Eurovision as Ukraine’s representative in 2026, but it also meant something else: she had now finished third at Vidbir three times in different cycles, and she had done so as a solo artist in 2026 after winning as part of a duo in 2024.
Why return at all? That is the question many viewers asked. A third-place Eurovision finisher does not need to re-enter a national selection. Returning carries risk: a lower result could be read as a step backwards, and a song that does not win can overshadow the song that did. Heil’s decision to return suggests a different calculation. Vidbir, for her, is not only a means to Eurovision. It is a stage where she has built her career, a place where Ukrainian audiences first judged her, and a format she clearly enjoys. Catharticus (prayer), by its title alone, suggests a more reflective, prayer-like register than Teresa and Maria, and its third-place finish shows that Ukrainian juries and viewers responded to that register seriously, even when they ultimately chose another winner.
The 2026 result also completes a symmetry that is rare in Eurovision national selections. Heil’s Vidbir record now reads as a full career in miniature: sixth, third, victory, and then third again as a returning artist. Few singers return to a national final after representing their country, and fewer still finish on the podium again. That record, more than any single song, defines her Vidbir story. It shows persistence without desperation, ambition without a refusal to accept a result, and a willingness to let audiences judge new work on its own terms.
Recognition, Style and Musical Identity
Heil’s recognition includes the Public Choice award at the Music Moves Europe Awards in 2023, where she was recognised as the Public Choice laureate and served as a jury member the following year. She was also included in Forbes Ukraine’s 30 Under 30 list in 2024, a list recognising young Ukrainians whose achievements during the year were considered particularly inspiring. She is also reported as one of the few Ukrainians to have entered Berklee College of Music in the United States, a detail that connects her formal training in Kyiv to an international music education context. Together, these honours sketch a career recognised both by audiences, who voted for her, and by industry lists, which placed her among a generation of Ukrainian cultural figures.
Her musical identity, as it has developed, is best described as pop with deep Ukrainian roots and an experimental edge. Early songs used humour, everyday language and social-media-era references. Later songs draw more openly on Ukrainian folklore, on layered and polyphonic singing, on electronic production and on classical vocal technique. That evolution is not a rejection of her early work. It is an expansion of it. The humour and directness remain, but they are now joined by a willingness to write longer, more reflective songs, to collaborate across genres, and to use her voice as an instrument in its own right rather than only as a vehicle for a chorus.
Her role as a songwriter is central to that identity. She writes for herself, she co-writes major collaborations, and she is credited on songs that have defined her career. In an industry where performers and writers are often separate, that dual role gives her more control over what she sings and how she is understood. It also means that her career is not only a list of performances. It is a catalogue of writing choices: which stories to tell, which language to sing in, which collaborators to trust, and which themes — strength, unity, responsibility, faith in oneself — to return to again and again.
Charity and cultural work form another part of that identity. She has performed at charity events supporting Ukraine, and her post-2022 collaborations, including work with alyona alyona and Within Temptation, have been linked to support for Ukrainian artists and audiences during wartime. Vidbir 2026 itself, with its fundraising for prosthetics for veterans, shows the context in which Ukrainian pop now operates: entertainment, national identity and humanitarian effort are closely connected, and artists are often asked to carry all three at once.
What to Listen to First
Heil’s catalogue is best approached chronologically, because her development is audible. Start with Okhrana otmiena to hear the playful pop breakthrough that made her a national name. Then listen to Ya yana as an album, not only as a single, to hear how she built a full record around that energy. Move to Dai Boh to hear her collaboration with alyona alyona before Eurovision, and then to Teresa and Maria to hear that partnership at its most polished and most widely heard. From there, Arkhetypy offers a different kind of listening: a longer, more thematic album that rewards attention to vocal arrangement and to the folk and electronic textures underneath the pop surface. Finally, Sing Like a Siren shows how her voice works outside Ukrainian pop altogether, in a collaboration with a symphonic metal band, while Catharticus (prayer) shows where she chose to go next as a solo Vidbir artist in 2026.
That listening path is not a ranking. It is a way of hearing change. The early songs are immediate. The later songs ask for more patience, but they repay it with a wider emotional range. A listener who only knows Teresa and Maria will understand Heil as a Eurovision singer. A listener who follows the path above will understand her as a songwriter whose Eurovision moment was one peak in a longer, still-developing career.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Jerry Heil’s real name?
Her real name is Yana Oleksandrivna Shemaieva. She was born on 21 October 1995 in Vasylkiv, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, and she performs professionally as Jerry Heil.
Did Jerry Heil win Eurovision?
No. She represented Ukraine at Eurovision 2024 with alyona alyona, performing Teresa and Maria, and finished third in the grand final in Malmö with 453 points. Switzerland won that year, followed by Croatia in second place.
What was Jerry Heil’s song at Vidbir 2026?
Her Vidbir 2026 song was Catharticus (prayer). She finished third in the final on 7 February 2026, with 8 jury points and 8 public points, behind winner LELÉKA and runner-up LAUD. She therefore did not represent Ukraine at Eurovision 2026.
How many times has Jerry Heil entered Vidbir?
She entered Vidbir in 2020 with Vegan, finishing sixth; in the 2023 cycle with When God Shut the Door, finishing third; in 2024 with alyona alyona and Teresa and Maria, winning the selection; and in 2026 as a solo artist with Catharticus (prayer), finishing third again.
What kind of music does Jerry Heil make?
She is primarily a pop singer and songwriter, but her later work also draws on Ukrainian folk singing, polyphonic vocals, electronic production and classical vocal training. Her catalogue includes playful pop singles, folk-influenced album tracks and cross-genre collaborations.
Which Jerry Heil albums should a new listener know?
Her studio albums are Ya yana from 2019, Mandaryny i oleni from 2021, and Arkhetypy from 2025. Her shorter releases include the debut EP De mii dim from 2017, the EP Osobyste from 2021, and the joint EP Dai Boh with alyona alyona from 2022.
Is Jerry Heil only a singer, or does she write songs too?
She is both a singer and a songwriter. She is credited among the lyricists of Teresa and Maria, alongside alyona alyona, and she has built her career as a songwriter-performer rather than only as a vocalist singing other people’s material.
Why is Teresa and Maria significant in Ukrainian pop?
The song combined a Ukrainian-language pop melody with a rap verse, used Mother Teresa and the Virgin Mary as symbols of charity, love and unification rather than as literal subjects, and gave Ukraine a third-place finish at Eurovision 2024. It also became Heil’s most widely heard song internationally.