TOP HEADLINES

• Russian forces pounded frontline cities in eastern Ukraine with air strikes and artillery attacks. The Russians pressed on with their offensive in the eastern Donetsk region where several cities and towns came under heavy bombardment, Ukraine's general staff said. Ukrainian forces repelled several attacks, it said, as the Russian military kept up its effort to take control of Bakhmut.

• Ukrainian officials played down a report that Kyiv is amending some plans for a counter-offensive because of a leak of classified U.S. documents.

• The leak of highly sensitive U.S. documents - many of them related to the Ukraine conflict - presents a "very serious" risk to U.S. national security, the Pentagon said.

• Ukraine and Russia said they had returned around 100 soldiers each in the latest prisoner exchange between the two warring countries. READ MORE BELOW

• The U.S. officially determined that Russia had wrongfully detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and called for his immediate release, stepping up pressure on his behalf. The Kremlin said the reporter had "violated Russian law."

• Ukraine has resumed electricity exports to Europe, its energy minister said, after they were suspended in October when Russia began launching regular missile and drone attacks at critical energy infrastructure.

• Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza said he stood by all of his political statements, including against the Ukraine offensive, that led him to face 25 years in jail. "I subscribe to every word that I have said, that I am incriminated for today," Kara-Murza said, citing his fight against the Ukraine offensive and President Vladimir Putin. 

• A Russian court sentenced two former officials to 19 years in prison for throwing Molotov cocktails at a town hall in protest against military mobilization, Russian news agencies reported. The sentence is the heaviest punishment handed out so far for this type of attack, of which there have been dozens since Russia began its military campaign in Ukraine.

•  Russia will soon draft men into the army by sending them electronic call-up papers via an online portal in addition to traditional letters, according to draft legislation due to be debated on Tuesday that aims to facilitate mobilization. 

IN DETAIL

Moscow and Kyiv return 100 soldiers each in 'difficult' prisoner exchange

Ukraine and Russia said they had returned around 100 soldiers each in the latest prisoner exchange between the two countries. Kyiv and Moscow have periodically carried out prisoner swaps since Russia launched its offensive in Ukraine more than a year ago.

"We are returning 100 of our people," the Ukrainian president's chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on Telegram. "They are military people, sailors, border guards, national guardsmen." 

Yermak said the exchange included troops who held out in Mariupol - the devastated port city captured by Russia last spring - and that some were "seriously injured." 

He called the exchange "difficult" and thanked officials for "doing what may often seem impossible."

Yermak posted a video of women in uniform being greeted with flowers. Moscow said it had returned 106 of its servicemen in the exchange.

"As a result of negotiations, 106 Russian soldiers were returned from territories under Kyiv control," the Russian defense ministry said. It said they will be taken by plane to Moscow for treatment and rehabilitation. 

"All those that were freed will be given the necessary medical and psychological help," the ministry added. 

The previous Russian-Ukrainian prisoner exchange was last month. Authorities announced on March 7 that 130 Ukrainians were swapped for 90 Russian servicemen.

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