Two Ukrainian soldiers and a civilian have been killed in eastern Ukraine amid deadlocked international efforts to halt the violence, the military said on Thursday.

"As a result of hostilities, over the past 24 hours two Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and two more wounded", Ukrainian military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk told journalists.

The EU on Wednesday proposed offering visa-free travel in Europe to Ukrainians, delivering on a key pledge to the pro-Western government in Kiev.

"Today we follow up on our commitment to propose short-stay visa-free travel to the EU for Ukrainian citizens with biometric passports," EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told a news briefing in Brussels.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Tuesday that jailed pilot Nadiya Savchenko had agreed to end her hunger strike in a Russian jail, as Kiev tries to hammer out a prisoner swap deal with Moscow.

Poroshenko spoke by phone with Savchenko who was jailed by a Russian court last month on murder charges.

A Ukrainian court on Monday sentenced two alleged Russian soldiers to 14 years in prison for fighting in the rebel east, in a ruling that could prelude a swap for pilot Nadiya Savchenko jailed by Russia.

The verdict from a panel of three judges read out in court said sergeant Aleksander Aleksandrov and captain Yevgeny Yerofeyev were guilty of participating in "an aggressive war" against Ukraine and committing "a terrorist attack".

Ukraine's parliament on Thursday appointed pro-Western speaker Volodymyr Groysman as prime minister in a bid to end months of political gridlock and unlock vital aid to the war torn-state.

Lawmakers voted by 257 to 50 to approve the resignation of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk -- condemned by President Petro Poroshenko for losing the public's trust -- and select Groysman in the first cabinet overhaul since Ukraine's 2014 pro-EU revolt.

Ukraine's parliament on Tuesday postponed a vote to approve embattled Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's resignation as furious backroom battles raged over the makeup of a new pro-EU government.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced his resignation Sunday in the wake of a months-long political crisis that has paralyzed the government and frozen the release of vital Western aid.

Unknown assailants on Friday threw Molotov cocktails and set alight the Kiev office of a Ukrainian judge overseeing the trial of two alleged Russian soldiers captured in the separate east.

The attack comes two weeks after police discovered the body of a Ukrainian lawyer who was brutally murdered after representing one of the two Russian suspects detained during a May 2015 battle in the pro-Moscow region of Lugansk.

Nadiya Savchenko's 22-year sentence formally begins Tuesday with the Ukrainian pilot to be sent to prison camp in the next 10 days unless Kiev secures a swap deal with Moscow.

The 34-year-old military pilot was convicted on March 22 over the killing of two Russian journalists in east Ukraine, a charge she denies.

Two Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the latest uptick in fighting with pro-Russian separatists in the country's war-torn east, a Kiev military official said Saturday.

"As a result of fighting two Ukrainian servicemen were killed and another eight were wounded," Ukrainian military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk told journalists.