Stephen Budd: It was better than the gay Stalin and his four Sovietska strippers

You have to hand it to Stefane and 3G – they are committed and brave people. It takes balls to be Georgian and plan to go out on stage in Moscow with an anti-Putin song. I did say to them, "You realise this is going to cause a furore in Russia and they may not let you do it", but they said they felt strongly about performing it, in protest at last year's war.

There were other songs that were better written, and better performed. I voted for one of those, but this is a fun, east European pop disco pastiche and the controversial phrase is quite innocuous. We saw more provocative artists – one dressed up as a gay Stalin with four female "Sovietskas" and did a striptease.

It was clear that Stefane and his girls had the public support and they would romp home on the text voting. In the end, the jury vote went their way too.

So can they win Eurovision? Well I'm definitely not a Eurovision fan but the last time I was involved I helped the Ukrainian singer Ruslana with "Wild Dances" in 2004, and that won. Georgia's "We Don't Wanna Put In" would make it a double.

If the Russians actually let them perform, we'll plunge into the complexities of tactical voting. Allies of Russia will give it low votes but nations who don't like Russia and want to make a point will throw their support behind the Georgian entry.

Stephen Budd is the chairman of Georgia's Eurovision jury