Ukraine participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan. The Ukrainian entry was selected through a national final, organised by the Ukrainian broadcaster NTU. Gaitana represented Ukraine with the song "Be My Guest", which qualified from the second semi-final and went on to place 15th in the final, scoring 65 points.
Before Eurovision
Evrobachennya 2012 - Natsionalyni vidbir
On 23 August 2011, NTU confirmed its participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012. A total of 20 were planned to compete in a national final: nineteen candidates were to be selected by a jury and one candidate would be given a wildcard from Inter Channel's show Number 1.
Competing entries
On 25 November 2011, NTU announced more details about the national selection. Singers were able to send their entries to NTU from 25 November 2011 until 25 December 2011. On 25 January 2012, artists were required to attend an audition in front of a selection panel, which was composed of Vlad Bahinskyj, Volodymyr Kozlov, Victoria Romanova and Ivo Bobul. The jury ultimately selected 20 candidates to compete in the national selection, which were joined by Inter Channel wildcard Nerealnye. An additional wildcard from the non-qualifying entries was awarded through internet voting on the say.tv platform, being Max Barskih with the song "Dance". On 11 February 2012, the draw for running order was completed on the late night program Shuster Live. On 16 February 2012, singer Matias and the song "I Will Fight To The End" were withdrawn from the competition due to a conflict of interest with the singer's manager, Vlad Bahinskyj, being a part of the selection panel during the auditions.
Final
Evrobachennya 2012 took place on 18 February 2012 at NTU Studios in Kiev, hosted by Timur Myroshnychenko and Tetyana Terekhova. 21 songs ultimately competed with a jury and SMS vote deciding the winner. Each member of the jury panel rated each entry from 1-10. After summing the jury totals, the entry that received the most points was awarded 21 points, while the entry that received the least would be awarded 1 point. Ties were broken by awarding the song that received more higher ratings from the jury members. The public votes were awarded from 1 point to 21 points based on the amount of SMS votes each entry received. After the combination of jury votes and SMS voting, Gaitana was the winner with the song "Be My Guest". The jury panel consisted of Walid Arfush, Alyona Mozgova, Rudolf Kirnos, Mariya Manyuk, Yurij Rybchunskyj, Egor Benkendorf and Semen Gorov.
At Eurovision
Ukraine competed in the second half of the second semi-final, on 24 May 2012, following Portugal and preceding the Bulgaria. Gaitana received 64 points and placed 8th, thus qualifying for the final on 26 May. In the final, Ukraine was drawn to perform 25th, after Serbia and preceding Moldova. The Ukrainian entry scored a total of 65 points and placed 15th in the final.
Split results
In the Semi-final Ukraine came 8th with 64 points: the public awarded Ukraine 17th place with 24 points and the jury awarded 3rd place with 109 points.
In the Final Ukraine came 15th with 65 points: the public awarded Ukraine 20th place with 37 points and the jury awarded 7th place with 125 points.
