Three Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 15 wounded in the latest fighting in eastern Ukraine, a military spokesman said Sunday.

Fighting was ongoing around Donetsk airport and in Stanitsa Luganska, near rebel-held Lugansk, the spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, told a news briefing.

Moldova went to the polls on Sunday in a crucial parliamentary election that will help determine whether the impoverished ex-Soviet country pursues integration with Europe or returns to Russia's fold.

Polling stations opened at 7:00 am (05:00 GMT), with voters facing a choice between political parties aiming for membership in the European Union and those that back joining Russia in a customs union.

Ukraine authorities on Saturday banned flights to the rebel-held east of the former Soviet republic, the head of Ukraine's aviation authority said.

"Flights are banned for Russian companies to Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk for safety reasons," Denis Antoniuk told Agence France-Presse without elaborating.

Nina Nikiforovna, a pensioner in the rebel-held city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, took up begging recently.

"I never thought I'd live long enough to know such shame," she says, but she needs pills for her heart condition and after several months without receiving her pension, she saw no alternative.

Six more coffins carrying body parts of victims from downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 arrived in the Netherlands from Ukraine on Friday, with nine victims of the July disaster still unidentified.

A Dutch Air Force C-130 transport plane arrived at an airfield in the southern city of Eindhoven after leaving Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine.

French authorities and NATO confirmed the presence of four Russian warships in the English Channel on Friday, but denied they were doing military exercises and said they were taking shelter due to bad weather.

Officials quickly sought to ease fears over the presence of the flotilla after Russian media reported they were planning military exercises, with East-West tensions sky-high over Russia's intervention in ex-Soviet Ukraine.

Ukraine's parliament on Thursday confirmed pro-Western Arseniy Yatsenyuk as premier to lead a new coalition government, while fresh attacks in the east provided a reminder of the steep challenges ahead.

In a widely expected move, the Verkhovna Rada parliament backed Arseniy Yatsenyuk to remain as prime minister in its first sitting since pro-European parties won an overwhelming majority at polls in October.

The European Union on Thursday added five separatist groups and 13 individuals to a blacklist for their role in elections this month in rebel-held eastern Ukraine, diplomatic sources said.

The decision taken by the 28 EU ambassadors "responds to the separatist vote which undermined ... the implementation of the Minsk protocol" establishing a ceasefire in the region, one of the sources said.

Ukraine's parliament on Thursday held its first sitting since pro-Western parties won a crushing poll victory, with lawmakers facing a mammoth task to drag the war-wracked nation back from the brink of collapse.

Deputies in the new-look Verkhovna Rada chamber sang the national anthem before holding a minute's silence in memory of those killed in Kiev protests and the conflict in east Ukraine. 

Ukraine's military said Thursday that two civilians were killed in the latest clashes in east Ukraine, as international monitors observing the fighting between government forces and pro-Russian rebels reported being fired upon.

A patrol of three monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were shot at by a rocket-propelled grenade and an anti-aircraft gun as they were escorted by the Ukrainian military in the conflict zone Wednesday, the OSCE said in a statement.