Ukraine participated in Eurovision Song Contest 2010 with the song "Sweet People" written by Borys Kukoba, Vadim Lisitsa and Olena Kucher. The song was performed by Alyosha, which is the artistic name of singer Olena Kucher.
Vasyl Lazarovych was internally selected in December 2009 by the Ukrainian broadcaster National Television Company of Ukraine (NTU) to represent Ukraine at the 2010 contest in Oslo, Norway, while his song was selected through a national final held on 5 March 2010. Five songs competed in the national selection and "I Love You" was selected as the winning song following the combination of votes from a six-member jury panel and a public televote. After objections to the internal selection of Lazarovych, NTU organised a new open national final which was held on 20 March 2010. Twenty entries competed in the new national selection and "To Be Free" performed by Alyosha was selected as the winner after tying for first place following the combination of votes from a seven-member jury panel and a public televote—the tie was decided by the jury in Alyosha's favour. Following plagiarism allegations and claims that "To Be Free" had been made available publicly in 2008, the song was replaced with "Sweet People", which was presented to the public on 25 March 2010.
Ukraine was drawn to compete in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 27 May 2010. Performing during the show in position 8, "Sweet People" was announced among the top 10 entries of the second semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 29 May. It was later revealed that Ukraine placed seventh out of the 17 participating countries in the semi-final with 77 points. In the final, Ukraine performed in position 17 and placed tenth out of the 25 participating countries with 108 points.
Background
Prior to the 2010 contest, Ukraine had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest seven times since its first entry in , winning it in with the song "Wild Dances" performed by Ruslana. Following the introduction of semi-finals for the , Ukraine had managed to qualify to final in every contest they participated in thus far. Ukraine had been the runner-up in the contest on two occasions: in with the song "Dancing Lasha Tumbai" performed by Verka Serduchka and in with the song "Shady Lady" performed by Ani Lorak. Ukraine's least successful result had been 19th place, which they achieved during the , with the song "Razom nas bahato" performed by GreenJolly.
The Ukrainian national broadcaster, National Television Company of Ukraine (NTU), broadcasts the event within Ukraine and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. NTU confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest on 28 December 2009. In the past, the broadcaster had alternated between both internal selections and national finals in order to select the Ukrainian entry. Between 2005 and 2009, NTU had set up national finals to choose both or either the song and performer to compete at Eurovision for Ukraine, with both the public and a panel of jury members involved in the selection. The method was continued to select the 2010 Ukrainian entry.
Before Eurovision
Original selection
On 29 December 2009, NTU announced during a press conference that they had internally selected Vasyl Lazarovych to represent Ukraine in Oslo. Vasyl Lazarovych's selection as the Ukrainian representative was decided upon from six artists considered by the Arts Council of NTU, with ten out of eleven members voting in favour of Lazarovych. On 13 January 2010, NTU announced that they would organise a national final to select his song. Composers had the opportunity to submit their songs between 13 January 2010 and 7 February 2010. A seven-member selection panel reviewed the 106 received submissions and shortlisted five songs to compete in the national final. On 2 March 2010, the five selected competing songs were announced.