The Dutch government says forensic experts have identified the first of the 298 people killed in the MH17 disaster, as grieving parents of an Australian victim defied safety concerns to visit the crash site.
Ignoring safety warnings, the Australian couple travelled to the scene without an escort on Saturday, saying they were fulfilling a promise to their only child that they would be there.
"She was full of life," said Angela Rudhart-Dyczynski of their 25-year-old daughter Fatima, an aerospace engineering student who died when the plane was shot down on July 17.
She and her husband Jerzy Dyczynski, who wore a T-shirt with the words "Fatima: We Love You", were overcome with emotion as they walked among the wreckage and laid a large bouquet of flowers.
A truce has been called in the area around the eastern Ukraine crash site by both Kiev forces and pro-Russian separatists.
Combat still rages just 60km away and loud explosions could be heard at regular intervals in western and northern suburbs of rebel stronghold Donetsk.
The Dutch government, which is in charge of identifying the passengers' remains, said on Saturday that forensic experts had confirmed the first victim to be one of 193 Dutch citizens on board.
An investigation into the downing of flight MH17 has been hampered by the violence plaguing east Ukraine, which has claimed at least nine lives in the last 24 hours in insurgent holdout Lugansk.
Dutch experts sought to travel to the site on Saturday, but turned back because of safety concerns.
The rebels accused of shooting down the plane have signalled they are only open to allowing in a small group of Australian and Dutch representatives.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott stressed that it was a "humanitarian mission".
"It's the presence of unrecovered remains that makes it more important than ever that an international team be dispatched," he said.
"Others can get involved if they wish in the politics of eastern Europe.
"Our sole concern is to claim our dead and to bring them home."
The Australian prime minister discussed plans later on Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin for "an independent and objective international inquiry", the Kremlin said in a statement.
After a few days of relative inaction, recovery efforts appeared to restart on Saturday, AFP reporters at the scene said.
But Ukraine's parliament needs to approve any international deployment, and it is not due to debate the issue until Thursday.
The Netherlands is planning to send a team of 60 officers, while Australia is sending 190 police and a small number of military personnel to the Netherlands in preparation for the mission.
The European Union has punished Russia, which it accuses of aiding the insurgency, with new sanctions on its intelligence chiefs.
Moscow angrily blasted the move as "irresponsible", and warned it put co-operation on security issues at risk.
Meanwhile, British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg joined calls on Sunday for Russia to be stripped of the 2018 World Cup.
The Liberal Democrat leader said sporting events should be part of a new package of EU sanctions against Moscow.
"You can't have this - the beautiful game - marred by the ugly aggression of Russia on the Russian Ukrainian border," Clegg told the Sunday Times newspaper.
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