A Vietnamese pop singer won top honors at Russia’ s Intervision Song Contest, a Cold-War era music festival that Moscow revived in response to being kicked out of the global Eurovision spectacle for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Howard’s place as the US entrant was then taken by Vassy, an Australian-born singer who also has a US passport. While it never rivaled the other contest’s popularity, Intervision carried political weight, projecting the supposed solidarity of the Warsaw Pact. When Austrian drag queen Conchita Wurst won Eurovision in 2014, Russian authorities announced plans to revive the competition as "an alternative to bearded Eurovision" but nothing came of it. After its all-out invasion of Ukraine, Moscow was banned from Eurovision, along with other major global sporting and cultural events.