Forensic experts have identified the first of 298 people killed in the MH17 disaster, the Dutch government said, as grieving relatives defied safety concerns to pay an emotional visit to the crash site in eastern Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Saturday discussed how an international probe could be set up into the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine, in which 28 Australians were killed.

The two leaders held a telephone conversation "to exchange their views on aspects of organizing an independent and objective international inquiry", the Kremlin said in a statement.

Forensic experts have identified the first of 298 people killed when flight MH17 which was shot down over Ukraine last week, the Dutch government said on Saturday.

"Today the first victim of the flight MH17 disaster was identified," the justice ministry said in a statement.

An Australian couple who lost their daughter in downed Malaysian flight MH17 visited the crash site in rebel-held east Ukraine on Saturday, the first relatives of victims to arrive at the scene.

Grief-stricken Jerzy Dyczynski and Angela Rudhart-Dyczynski's 25-year-old daughter Fatima was one of 298 victims killed when the Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur flight was shot down on July 17.

Russia said Saturday that new European Union sanctions targeting Russian intelligence chiefs over its role in Ukraine risked ending all joint cooperation on security.

The European Union "has practically speaking put at risk international cooperation in the area of security," the Russian foreign ministry said in an angry response.

The European Union is making swift progress on adopting much tougher economic sector sanctions against Russia for its role in the Ukraine crisis, officials said Friday.

After discussions on broadening the sanctions from the current mix of asset freezes and travel bans, the legal instruments required to give effect to the new punitive measures will be taken up Tuesday, they said.

A strip of white bandage on a stick in a sunflower field marked the spot where the remains of one of the 298 victims of downed Malaysian flight MH17 lay in the sun on Friday more than a week after the crash.

Combine harvesters cut down the wheat in surrounding fields in a semblance of normality at the gruesome scene -- some of them skirting pieces of the wreckage.

Russia on Friday called the latest U.S. accusations of Moscow's involvement in the Ukrainian conflict a baseless "smear campaign" and said Washington bears responsibility for the bloodshed.

"Due to the smear campaign against us that the U.S. Administration has begun... we reject the unfounded public insinuations that U.S. deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf is spreading on a daily basis," a statement by the Russian foreign ministry said. 

Ukraine's political circus made an unwelcome return to center stage as bickering lawmakers struggled Friday to avert a crisis of their own making after Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk resigned in a huff.

As the country battles a bloody pro-Russian insurgency in the east amid international attention over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 and teeters on the brink of bankruptcy, analysts said the last thing Ukraine needed was a bout of political limbo.

The Polish government has canceled plans for a year of cultural celebrations with Russia out of anger with Russian actions in Ukraine.

The Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it summoned the Russian ambassador to inform him of the decision.