The Tánaiste Leo Varadkar says the Government is not going to set a limit on the number of Ukrainian citizens coming to Ireland.

He was speaking after the Cabinet announced it will extend special protections and rights to those who do come.

This means they will not have to apply for asylum, and can work here for up to three years in most cases.

Mr Varadkar told The Pat Kenny Show Ireland will stand with other EU members.

"Even though Ukraine is not a member of the European Union, we'll treat Ukrainian citizens almost as though they are.

"We can't predict at this stage how many Ukrainians might come here - I've seen figures suggested, but it's just impossible to know how many it'll be.

"It could be a few thousand, it could be 20,000 as Minister Coveney suggested yesterday.

"But we're not going to set a limit on it.

"This is a war that's happening in Europe, we're Europeans and we need to show solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

"And also those other countries in central-eastern Europe who are bearing the brunt of this refugee crisis, which has been deliberately created by President Putin in order to attempt to destabilise the European Union - and we need to make sure he doesn't get away with that".

No plan to expel Russian ambassador

Asked about expelling Russian diplomats, echoing comments by Minister Simon Coveney, Mr Varadkar says this is being considered.

"That's a matter under consideration... if we do it - and I expect we will - we'll do it in consort with other European partners.

"But we don't at the moment plan to expel the Russian ambassador himself.

"I totally understand the feelings about this, and the emotions and the anger and why people want him to be expelled.

"I understand those feelings cause I share them, quite frankly.

"But we need to be able to talk to the Russians, and even countries that are at war exchange ambassadors because you do need to have a channel of communication.

"We do have hundreds of Irish citizens in Russia, we've Irish students in Russia, and of course we have Irish citizens - including some children - in Ukraine, who may be living under Russian occupation in the next couple of weeks.

"And if we cut off diplomatic relations, we'll be relying on the British or the Dutch or the French to look out for our citizens in those countries.

"And obviously they're going to prioritise their own citizens over ours.

"It might be the kind of thing that makes us feel good for a few days, and then we would spend the next few weeks and months regretting it".

'Distinction between Russian people and regime'

And Mr Varadkar says Ireland's neutrality is not in question, as we have never been 'politically neutral'.

"We're not anti the Russian people - President Putin is not a democratically elected president.

"Unfortunately attempts to build a democracy in Russia were undermined, and they failed.

"I'm not aware of any democratically elected president in the world that's there for more than 20 years - this just doesn't happen in democracies.

"I think it's really important that we make that distinction between the Russian people and the regime - which has effectively stolen Russia, it's not representative of the Russian people.

"Ireland has been militarily neutral for a very long time, since the Second World War.

"But we've never been politically neutral... in the Second World War we supported the Allies, not the Nazis.

"During the Cold War we supported liberal democracies - of which we are one - and on this occasion we're supporting the Ukrainian people in their fight to protect their independence, their democracy, their liberty".