Dima Bilan, who placed 2nd in 2006 and 1st in 2008, will be giving it yet another shot this year. White Night, penned by Kirkorov, is his entry in this year’s pre-selection phase. Will he make it once more, or will the Russians send someone else on their behalf?

It has just been announced that Dima Bilan – the Russian singer who won the ESC with the song Believe in 2008 – will be competing in the national Contest to represent his country in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. He will fight for this honour, on the pre-selection night, with White Night, a song penned by Philip Kirkorov.

During a ceremony held earlier on today, in which the best 20 songs that made it to the “Golden Grammophone” chart through “Russian Radio” were announced, Kirkorov revealed to the general public that Dima Bilan will be competing with a song he wrote for him. Kirkorov also maintained that Russia should indeed be represented by this singer, as he is experienced, professional and extremely clever, therefore he stands a good chance of making it.

Kirkorov goes on to claim that if “I didn’t have faith in Dima Bilan, I wouldn’t have collaborated with him.” Moreover, he is happy to be working with a great team, including producer Yana Rudkovskaya and choreographer Fokas Evvagelinos. However, before settling on working with Bilan, Philip Kirkorov had been negotiating on working with Vlad Sokolovskiy, another Russian singer.

Bilan’s song will be premiered next week.