Russia on Tuesday toughened the penalties for unsanctioned political protests, introducing criminal penalties of up to five years in jail for multiple violations.

President Vladimir Putin signed into law changes which place unsanctioned protests and rallies alongside instigating mass unrest in the criminal code.

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Tuesday to do everything possible to influence pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and help ensure a full probe into the Malaysia Airlines crash last week.

However he added that it would not be enough with Kiev's continuing military operation against the rebels, adding that the West must push Ukraine's authorities to declare a ceasefire.

The first bodies from the MH17 crash in Ukraine will be flown on Wednesday to the Netherlands, where their identification could take months, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said.

"Tomorrow the first plane (with bodies) will leave for Eindhoven," in the southern Netherlands, Rutte told journalists after the bodies arrived in Ukraine's Kharkiv from rebel-held territory.

Presidents from nine ex-communist NATO members met in Warsaw on Tuesday for talks on how to re-enforce the alliance's eastern frontier as if faces a resurgent Russia.

"The Russia-Ukraine conflict is Europe's most important security challenge since the end of the Cold War," Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski told reporters as the leaders met to forge their regional defense strategy ahead of a NATO summit in September.

The downing of the MH17 flight over rebel territory in Ukraine has put Moscow's support of the separatists under more scrutiny than ever amid allegations the plane was blasted out of the sky with a Russian-supplied missile system.

The US, whose relations with Moscow have dropped to a post-Cold War low over the Ukraine crisis, has led the charge.

The downing of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine was a "hideous crime" and hurdles to a probe of the tragedy are an "outrage", global airline federation IATA said on Tuesday.

"The passengers and crew aboard the aircraft were the victims of a hideous crime. It was also an attack against the air transport system," said Tony Tyler, head of the International Air Transport Association.

The British government on Tuesday announced a public inquiry to investigate who was behind the death of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy poisoned with radioactive tea in London in 2006.

The move comes as London presses for greater sanctions against Moscow over the downing of a passenger plane in eastern Ukraine and is likely to anger the Kremlin and further chill relations between Britain and Russia.

The mayor of Moscow on Tuesday announced he had fired the head of the capital's metro over a devastating crash that killed 22 people and injured more than 200.

"What happened on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line, this tragedy, has canceled out the huge amount of work that was carried out in the metro in recent years," Mayor Sergei Sobyanin told a meeting.

Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite said Tuesday the European Union was compromising its values to protect trade ties with Russia, pointing to a French warship agreement with Moscow.

"We see the Mistralisation of European policy," Grybauskaite said, referring to a 1.2 billion euro ($1.6 billion) deal to supply Russia with two French Mistral warships.

Malaysia's deal with pro-Russian rebels on MH17 caps an official response to the disaster that is being hailed at home as a swift and clear counterpoint to the government's widely mocked reaction to the disappearance of MH370.

The leadership of Prime Minister Najib Razak has been put to the test again by yet another tragic and complex air disaster just four months after the still-unexplained disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 rocked his country.