Moscow hosts Intervision song contest: As it happened
Touted as an alternative to Eurovision, the event unites dozens of participants from Latin America, Africa, and Asia
Singers from 23 nations have gathered in Moscow for the Intervision international music festival. The event is aimed at becoming a “universal platform for dialogue between civilizations based on the mutual enrichment of national histories and traditions,” according to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Russia was excluded from Eurovision due to tensions with the EU over the Ukraine conflict. It now seeks to provide an alternative based on “universal values,” President Vladimir Putin has said. “Traditional values are already fading into the background... It is time to bring them back to the international agenda,” he stated earlier this month.
The festival is being held at the Live Arena Moscow – a major concert venue just outside of the Russian capital. The song contest includes performers from Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
This live feed has ended.
20 September 2025
21:28 GMTSaudi Arabia will host the Intervision next year, the organizers have announced. The hosting nation is not determined by the winning performance in this contest, unlike Eurovision.
Duc Phuc from Vietnam has been declared the winner of Intervision 2025 by the jury. The second place was awarded to Nomad Trio from Kyrgyzstan, with Dana Al Meer from Qatar taking the third spot.
Nastya Kravchenko from Belarus is the youngest contestant at the Intervision. Some media still named her as one of the contenders for first place. Back at home, she was recognized as the Best Radio Performer at the national Song of the Year award last year.
Vietnamese contestant Duc Phuc is one of the country’s most recognizable pop singers. He rose to fame after winning the Vietnamese edition of The Voice and has since broken records on YouTube and streaming services, with hundreds of millions of views and songs charting internationally.
The band Mzansi Jikelele, hailing from South Africa, has come to the contest with the song Home, written especially for Intervision.
Serbia is represented by one of the founders of modern traditional Balkan music, Slobodan Trkulja, and his band Balkanopolis with the song Three Little Roses.”
A singer from Venezuela, Omar Acedo, is introducing Moscow to his song ‘La Fiesta de la Paz’ (‘A celebration of peace’). “This is a song about peace! This is a message I want to send to the world,” he said ahead of the contest.
Ethiopian singer Netsanet Sultan brings the song ‘Halaala’ (‘In front of everyone’) to Intervision, written and performed in the Amharic language.
Columbia is represented at the contest by Nidia Gongora – a renowned singer and researcher of traditional music from the Pacific coast of Colombia. She is a six-time winner of the Petronio Alvarez Pacific Music Festival as well as a Latin Grammy nominee in the ‘Best Folk Album’ category.
Saudi singer and songwriter Zena Emad has graced the stage with the song ‘Mojrad Ham’ (‘Just Worrying’). She previously won the Saudi Culture Ministry’s contest for young musicians under 21 and went on to also win one of the most prestigious regional awards – the Riyadh Joy Awards – as the best aspiring artist in 2021.
