The European Union may be forced for legal reasons to drop sanctions on some members of the ousted Ukraine regime of president Victor Yanukovych, an EU official said Friday.

With an assertive Russia next door, Sweden has started to beef up its military after a decade of downsizing, but a credible deterrent may take years to achieve, analysts warn.

In one of the most dramatic steps since the end of the Cold War, Sweden has brought back the option of using reservists to boost its military force, making no attempt to hide the fact that the main motivation behind the move is Russia.

Russia on Friday expressed outrage at the U.S. Senate's approval of a bill to potentially provide lethal military aid to Ukraine in its fight against Kremlin-backed separatists, and to impose fresh sanctions on Moscow.

Ukraine says it will conscript 40,000 soldiers in 2015 and double its military budget as it tries to meet the demands of an ongoing conflict against pro-Russian rebels in its eastern provinces. 

"We foresee calling up 40,000 men in 2015 and training 10,500 people who will do their service (as professional soldiers)," Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak told parliament. 

On the snowy roof of a music school in eastern Ukraine, workers are busy fixing damage from artillery shelling. When their shift ends, they line up in single file to return to their cells.

The workers are Ukrainian prisoners of war, captured by pro-Russian rebels and pressed into forced labour in the small eastern town of Ilovaisk. 

President Petro Poroshenko on Friday said a "real" ceasefire was in place in Ukraine after the first 24 hours in seven months without a military casualty, although he admitted the truce was fragile.

"I have positive news. Today is the first 24 hours for seven months... when we have a real ceasefire in Ukraine," he said in a speech during a trip to Australia.

The leader of Crimea on Thursday visited India as part of a delegation led by Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he was seeking investors to help develop the peninsula annexed by Russia.

Moscow seized Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula in March, sending East-West relations to post Cold War lows and leading U.S. and Europe to impose sanctions on Russia.

utch authorities have identified two more victims of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash in Ukraine, with just four of the 298 dead still unidentified, all of them Dutch, officials said Thursday.

"Two victims of flight MH17 have been identified this week," the Dutch justice ministry ministry said in a statement.

Three soldiers were killed and eight injured in the past 24 hours, a Ukraine military spokesman said on Thursday, marking the first casualties since a ceasefire was introduced earlier this week. 

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday pleaded with Russia to withdraw its troops from his country and close the border, saying it would lead to almost immediate peace.

His comments came as a day-old ceasefire that aims to end eight months of brutal war in the east of Ukraine largely held along the bloodied frontline on Wednesday.