Baird rules out military response to Soviet-style intervention in Ukraine

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Canada\'s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird arrives to brief the media on the latest developments in Ukraine in Toronto on Sunday, March 2, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

OTTAWA – Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird says there’s no excuse for Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, which he calls old-style Soviet aggression.

Baird, who has just returned from Kyiv, says Russia’s ambassador to Canada was reamed out in his absence by his deputy minister Saturday.

And he’s not ruling out expelling the ambassador altogether.

But Baird is ruling out any kind of western military intervention to force Russian troops to withdraw from Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

Baird made the comments on Global TV’s West Block.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada is withdrawing its ambassador to Moscow and pulling out of preparatory meetings for the G8 summit, which is to be held in Sochi, Russia.

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