Two Russian journalists held for a week after being detained by pro-government forces in eastern Ukraine were released Sunday and flew to Moscow.

Speaking to reporters in the Russian capital, the two journalists for website LifeNews denied claims -- repeated last week by the State Department in Washington -- that they had been carrying anti-aircraft missiles when detained.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will visit Crimea during Ukraine's presidential vote on Sunday as Moscow demonstrates its hold over the peninsula it annexed in March.

Among other meetings during the two-day visit, Medvedev will on Sunday visit immigration offices in the city of Sevastopol where Russian passports are being issued to local residents, his office said in a statement.

A bitterly divided Ukraine voted Sunday in a presidential election seen as the most important in the country's history as it battles a deadly pro-Russian insurrection in the east.

Turnout was brisk in the capital Kiev and the west where long queues were reported but across the rebel-controlled industrial east, most polling stations remained closed.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday wrapped up the European election campaign for her conservative CDU party, calling the EU a "peace project" that was especially relevant during the crisis in Ukraine.

"Our task today is to again drive forward the peace project and -- especially in view of Ukraine -- to again and again talk to Russia, to again extend our hand, even if we don't always agree with everything" it does, she said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday condemned remarks from Britain's Prince Charles reportedly comparing his actions to those of Adolf Hitler, saying they were not worthy of royalty.

"I did not hear this expression. If it was said then of course this is unacceptable," Putin told foreign news agency journalists in Saint Petersburg.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that it was "impossible" to isolate Russia from the global economy despite pressure from the West over the crisis in Ukraine.

He also rejected talk of a "new Cold War" between Moscow and the West and denied claims Russia was trying to revive the Soviet empire.

"We're in a war situation," says one of the deliverymen bringing ballot papers in under armed guard to a polling station in the eastern Ukrainian town of Dobropillya.

"There is more security this time," he adds.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday called on the European Union to back efforts for new gas pipelines bypassing Ukraine, warning against "radicals" in Kiev blocking supplies.

Speaking at an economic forum in his hometown Saint Petersburg, Putin said Moscow has been a reliable gas supplier to Europe but could not count on transit countries like Ukraine.

Syrian President Bashar Assad Saturday thanked key ally Moscow for its support during a meeting in Damascus with a Russian delegation led by deputy premier Dimitry Rogozin, state media said.

The meeting comes days after Russia vetoed a draft U.N. resolution that would have referred crimes committed in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Russian security forces on Saturday killed five militants in a firefight in the violence-plagued North Caucasus region of Ingushetia, news agencies reported.

The militants were surrounded in a house early Saturday in the village of Sagopshi and a gunfight broke out after they refused to surrender their weapons, ITAR-TASS and Interfax reported, quoting local security services.