OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper is headed to Ukraine to become the first leader of a G7 country to visit the eastern European nation since pro-Western demonstrators drove out its government last month.

Harper, accompanied by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, will meet in Kyiv with newly minted Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to offer Canadian support to Ukrainians.

The brief trip to Ukraine — Harper will spend just a few hours in the volatile nation after travelling to Kyiv from the Netherlands — comes a few days before the prime minister is expected to make the case for a tough, united G7 front against the Russians.

The G7 nations are holding an emergency meeting on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague, taking place on Monday and Tuesday, to discuss the biggest crisis in eastern Europe since the Cold War era.

Harper, one of the most senior G7 leaders, holds some sway over his colleagues because of his consistent warnings about Russian President Vladimir Putin, says one foreign policy expert.

Canada’s large Ukrainian community also lends Canada an air of credibility on the file, says Fen Hampson, a director at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ont.

Follow Lee-Anne Goodman on Twitter at @leeanne25