Singer Jamala, who won the Eurovision Song Contest for Ukraine in 2016, has told of how she fled the country following Russia’s invasion – as her family, husband and friends remain in a bomb shelter in Kyiv.

The 38-year-old musician spoke about the impact of the war on her loved ones on Tuesday.

“My family, my husband, all my team, all my musical band, all my friends are in Kyiv in bomb shelters,” she told BBC Breakfast.

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“It is a really hard time for my country, for (the) whole world.

“I think we have to realise it’s not war only against Ukrainian people, it is war against all European values, values that were built together after the Second World War.

“That’s why nowadays it’s really hard to understand because it’s insane, it’s nonsense.

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“There are people dying, they don’t have any food, any water. Kids are dying.”

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Susana Alimivna Jamaladinova, whose stage name is Jamala, won Eurovision in Stockholm, Sweden, with her song 1944, about the forced deportation in Crimea under Joseph Stalin.

“When I wrote this song 1944 I did not know history repeats itself,” she said, speaking from Istanbul in Turkey.

“It was about my family, it was about my granny, it was about deportation in 1944. I thought I wrote this song about 1944 but nowadays it sounds so real and it’s horrible.”

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She added she will do everything in her power “every day, every minute” to help her country.

“Anywhere my voice can be heard, anywhere my voice can help my country, I will do everything in my power to spread the word about Putin’s bloody crime in Ukraine,” she said.

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