Aust Ukraine group slams ambassador

Claims by the Russian ambassador to Australia that neo-Nazis are coming to power in Ukraine are an outrageous pretext to rationalise having troops in a foreign country, the peak body representing Ukrainians says.

The Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations (AFUO) has welcomed the "very strong and unprecedented statements" by the federal government about Russia's incursions into their home country.

That included Russian ambassador Vladimir Morozov being summoned to a meeting with the foreign affairs department secretary on Monday.

AFUO spokesman Peter Shmigel said the ambassador's statements following the meeting were "fanciful and almost bizarre stuff".

"The Russian ambassador is so desperate that he has to set up this pretext of neo-Nazism in order to intervene in the affairs of another country," he told AAP.

"That is how defensive they are about the fact that they've actually broken international law here, that they have to go for this extraordinary and outrageous kind of pretext in order to rationalise having troops in someone else's country."

Mr Shmigel said members of Australia's 38,0000-strong Ukrainian community were shocked, saddened and angered by the events in their home country.

He said history showed that the kind of bullying Russia was doing must be resisted.