After having been rumoured almost every year since 2003, Sergey Lazarev was finally announced as the Russian representative at the Eurovision Song Contest in Stockholm next May, during the First National Awards Ceremony in Moscow this evening.

Lazarev is a huge star in his native country, starting his musical career in the boyband Smash, before embarking on a successful solo career with numerous hit albums. He even tried to represent Russia at Eurovision in 2008, with the song ‘Flyer’ but he came 4th to eventual winner Dima Bilan.

Despite rumours that Sergey’s entry will be written by Eurovision icon Philipp Kirkorov, no official news about the Russian song has been released yet.

Here’s one of Sergey’s recent hits ‘Take It Off’. No further comments needed.