[8] She is recognized as the most successful Ukrainian female solo artist internationally[9][10] and was included in the top 10 most influential women of 2013 by the Forbes magazine.

[15] Ruslana was the first artist from the former Soviet Union to officially receive a platinum disc, her Dyki tantsi album selling more than 170,000 copies in the first 100 days after its release.

[21] Her repertoire includes songs performed mainly in Ukrainian and English, but she also recorded cover versions in Spanish and Latin languages.

At the end of the concert, Zinkevych asked her to come on stage and declared in front of an audience of 15,000 spectators: "Remember this young singer, your compatriot.

"[23] After finishing secondary school, Ruslana entered the Lviv Conservatory where she graduated as a classical pianist and symphonic orchestra conductor in 1995.

Her first album Myt Vesny – Dzvinkyi Viter (A Moment of Spring – Wind Bells), released in 1998, received high praise from the critics.

It combines powerful and permeating ethnic drums, trumpet sounds of the trembita, an ancient Hutsul music instrument, with modern dance beats.

[29] However, the singer had to decline the offer due to her involvement in the organization of a big charity concert dedicated to the victims of the Chernobyl disaster.

She performed a medley of Wild Dances and Heart on Fire at the opening ceremony being accompanied by the Zhyttia ballet and the Ukrainian drums ensemble ARS Nova.

[30] In 2006, Ruslana's song "Wild Dances" was named Germany's all-time favorite Eurovision entry in an internet poll arranged by the German public television broadcaster NDR.

[32] The album was recorded at the Hit Factory Studio in Miami and contains two collaborations with American Urban superstars T-Pain and Missy Elliott.

[33] On this release Ruslana creates her own distinctive technique of incorporating ancient ethnic styles of the Carpathian Mountain people with modern popular music.

[36] Wieber eventually became the 2011 World Women's All-Around Champion and won the golden medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics performing her floor exercise on Ruslana's song.

Ruslana integrated old Slavic circle dances, liturgies and elements of classic pieces of Russian composers including Glinka, Tschaikowsky, Mussorgsky, and Rachmaninow.

Most of the album was produced by Vlad DeBriansky in Los Angeles and includes the names of American top musicians such as Rusty Allen, Victor Little, Oscar Seaton, Brian Coller as well as Stefan Örn from Sweden who won the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 as a songwriter.

For her final song, Ruslana performed along with the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus as well as the Zoloti Struny Youth Bandura Ensemble based in Toronto.

After her long-lasting creative break, which was caused by the dramatic and stormy events in Ukraine, Ruslana presented her new single "It's Magical / Я люблю" at the Eurovision Grand Finale in Kyiv on 13 May 2017.

The original, exotic manner of singing which forms the basis of the soundtrack Ruslana acquired on sometimes extreme expeditions into the Carpathian Mountains.

After all the events in her country and her extreme expeditions into the mountains, Ruslana feels like a kind of warrioress who is called to protect the most valuable: Love.

[49] In autumn 2004 Ruslana actively supported the democratic processes in Ukraine known as the Orange Revolution, to which her song "Dance with the Wolves" was devoted.

She became one of the prominent figures that addressed the mass crowds rallying in support of Yushchenko's demand that his original defeat be declared fraudulent.

[52][53] In December 2012 Ruslana launched the human rights campaign Не мовчи (Don't keep silent) which challenges the juridical system of Ukraine.

The father and son were convicted of killing a judge of a district court in Kyiv and sentenced to life imprisonment and 13 years in prison respectively.

[61][62] In an interview with The Daily Beast on 11 December 2013 she explained her role in the opposition as "charging Maidan with freedom-loving energy", insisted she "hates" politics[63] and denied supporting any single leader.

When during the night of 30 November 2013 the riot police wanted to clear the occupied Maidan and started beating up peacefully sleeping activists, Ruslana rushed for help and managed to seek shelter with about 100 students, some of them wounded, in a nearby monastery.

[66] During another night in December 2013, when riot police advanced again towards the square, Ruslana did her utmost to deescalate the situation by talking to them from the stage repeating over and over again "Quiet!

While the American press regarded her as the 'true heroine of Ukraine',[68] the German magazine Spiegel called her 'Kyiv's queen of the night',[69] and the Spanish newspaper El Mundo compared her to Jeanne d'Arc.

[74] In the following months Ruslana travelled to Stockholm, Paris, Warsaw, Brussels, Vienna, Strasbourg, Berlin, Munich, São Paulo, Washington, D.C., and New York speaking to leading government officials calling for international support, and giving interviews to press about the situation in Ukraine.

[85] After large regions in Western Ukraine were hit by a flood in July 2008 Ruslana set up the co-ordinating and relief centre Carpathians.

The aim of the centre is to create a database of the people in need, to provide emergency humanitarian help and to collect and distribute donations both from the public and from other Ukrainian artists and sportsmen to support the victims of the flood.