Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair said Canada would consider sending military trainers to Ukraine if "certain conditions" are met, but these conditions "do not exist yet."

He added that any Canadian military personnel would only be sent in "non-combat" roles, and Blair made these remarks during a press conference at the Canadian Forces base in Edmonton, while announcing a $43 million upgrade to the base.

The Defense Minister said the circumstances would need to "change" in Ukraine before Canadian forces could return to the country, where they were training Ukrainian soldiers on the ground before the war with Russia.

Blair said, "At the moment, conditions are not suitable for conducting this training in Ukraine, but we will continue the training."

Canada has trained more than 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers as part of Operation Unifier, which began in 2015 after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula.