As the government confirms long-term plans to arm Ukraine, the country’s ambassador is seeking to deepen ties with a new diplomatic mission – on the site of the recently cancelled Russian embassy.

A week after Ukraine regained some territory with a series of counter offensives, Defence Minister Richard Marles said the government intended to supply military aid over the long term.

“We see that this is going to be a protracted conflict and that we need to be there for the long haul,” he told the ABC on Sunday.

In Canberra, meanwhile, Ukraine’s envoy has revealed details of a new move on the diplomatic front.

“I’m just finishing the letter now,” the country’s ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko told The New Daily on Friday afternoon.

Mr Myroshnychenko is making a formal application to the National Capital Authority and the foreign affairs department to build real estate in Canberra’s diplomatic quarter from which Russia was recently evicted.

“The Ukrainian government has approved my search,” he said. “There are still legal avenues that the Russians are going to pursue, but if they get [dismissed] we will be ready.”

Ukraine Ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko. Photo: AAP

Australia moved to kick Russia off the land, which is a stone’s throw from Parliament House, in April.

It was allocated in 2008 but a Canberra planning authority says it did not make good on its promise to develop it within three years. 

In court documents published on Wednesday Russia applied to the Federal Court to either have that decision quashed, or to be paid $10 million in compensation.

Russia paid $2.5 million to initially lease the site but only a peppercorn rent since.

The ambassador says he is confident Ukraine would be able to get to work on the site immediately and would seek to raise funds with an appeal to Australia’s Ukrainian community and beyond.

“It would be an important symbol,” he said.

“Since the invasion we’ve built on foundations, and relations with Australia are now at a very high level.”

Ukraine is currently represented from a suite that takes up less than one floor of an office block next to a busy Canberra highway.

It is a long way from one of the last remaining unoccupied pieces of prime diplomatic real estate in the leafy, lakeside Canberra suburb of Yarralumla.

Australia has been described as the largest contributor of military aid to the defence of Ukraine outside of NATO.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Kiev on a trip that included a meeting of that European security grouping which had record representation from the Asia-Pacific.

Mr Marles declined to go into specifics about ongoing negotiations with Kyiv, which have been reported to include another 30 of the Bushmaster armoured troop carriers, which were deployed during a recent counteroffensive in north-east Ukraine.

“This needs to be resolved on their terms – that has to be the outcome, given the unprovoked aggression that we saw from Russia,” he told the ABC.

“Notwithstanding the advances that we’ve seen in the last week, Russia still occupies about a fifth of Ukrainian territory.

“There is a long way to go.”

A request for comment from the Russian embassy was not returned on Sunday.

The NCA says the Russian government would retain its place on the site for the duration of the court case.