Prime Minister Tony Abbott discussed the possibility with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko during the latter's visit to Melbourne on Thursday morning, raising the prospect of Australia's taking a deeper strategic role in Ukraine's conflict with Russia.

"We did talk about the potential for Australian uranium and coal exports to Ukraine," Mr Abbott told a press conference held by the leaders.

"Australia is an energy superpower and energy security is very important to Ukraine, particularly given its current vulnerability to supply shocks.

"This would be good, should we be able to bring it about, for jobs and prosperity in Australia as well as for jobs and prosperity in the Ukraine."

In the wake of the downing of MH17, Australia has been drawn into the conflict between Ukraine and Russia over Moscow's incursions into its smaller neighbour's territory.

The Abbott government is supplying non-lethal military assistance to Ukraine and is also poised to open a small embassy in Kiev.

But energy supplies would be a major step, as Moscow has previously cut off gas supplies to Ukraine as relations between the two countries deteriorated. Ukraine has also lately needed European Union and International Monetary Fund help to buy Russia's gas and pay for previous supplies.

Any supply of uranium to Ukraine is likely to be politically sensitive given the country is home to the infamous Chernobyl reactor which suffered a catastrophic meltdown in 1986 under then Soviet rule.

Ukraine today has a nuclear industry, with 15 reactors supplying about half the country's power, and is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency. One of those reactors suffered an accident a fortnight ago, though the Ukrainian government says no radioactive material was released.

Mr Abbott and Mr Poroshenko also discussed the MH17 atrocity and the Dutch-led investigation into the downing of the flight over Ukraine in which 298 people were killed, including 38 Australian citizens and residents.

Mr Poroshenko expressed confidence that the perpetrators of the atrocity – whom Ukraine and the West believe were pro-Kremlin rebels armed by Russia – will soon be brought to justice.

"I hope that very soon the investigation will be finished and now we have a …result (about) who's responsible for that."

But Mr Abbott was more cautious, saying that the criminal investigation could still take more than a year.

"We want this investigation to be concluded as quickly as possible but it's difficult to say precisely when that will be," he said.

He added that when he had visited the Netherlands a few months ago, there had been confidence that the investigation would be finished "within a year or so".

"I'm not sure whether that's still their position," he said.

Mr Abbott added that he had previously told Russian leader Vladimir Putin that Moscow must hand over any of its citizens or proxies who were involved.

"The point I made to President Putin is that if it turns out that people under Russian authority had a hand in this, we absolutely expect them to be surrendered to investigators and to prosecutors because this is an atrocity … It was mass murder on a vast scale."

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