AKIPRESS.COM - U.S. President Barack Obama has ruled out any military action in Ukraine and insisted that diplomacy was still the preferred option for America and its allies to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, The Hindu reported.

“We are not going to be getting into a military excursion in Ukraine,” Obama told local KNSD in an interview on Wednesday. “What we are going to do is mobilize all of our diplomatic resources to make sure that we’ve got a strong international coalition that sends a clear message, which is that Ukraine should decide their destiny.”

“There is a better path, but I think even the Ukrainians would acknowledge, for us to engage Russia militarily would not be appropriate and would not be good for Ukraine, either,” Barack Obama added.

“We do not need to trigger an actual war with Russia. The Ukrainians don’t want that, nobody would want that. But what we can do is stand up for principle, stand by the Ukrainian people,” he continued. “We’ve sent a clear message to Mr. Putin that we’ll probably be doing more stuff over the next several days, and ultimately, if we see the continuation of the process, then in coordination with our European allies, you can expect even more disruptive economic actions that could end up having a significant impact on the Russian economy.”

Obama’s remarks came as White House Press Secretary Jay Carney insisted that the U.S. is still focused on resolving the issue diplomatically. “We are still focused on what we believe is the proper way to resolve this situation, which is through de-escalation,” Mr. Carney told reporters.