LVIV, Ukraine — As President Joe Biden landed in Poland in a show of support for NATO’s eastern forces, the Ukrainian government said Friday that it had conducted its first prisoner exchange with Moscow during their month-long war, even as it accused enemy forces of forcibly sending people to Russia and reported at least 300 dead in a recent airstrike on a theater in Mariupol.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk in a message posted to Telegram said the countries exchanged prisoners twice. Ukraine received 19 civilians and 10 soldiers and handed back 11 civilians — captured from a sunken ship near Odesa — and 10 soldiers to Russia.
At the same time, a Ukrainian official accused Moscow of forcing hundreds of thousands of residents — including those from the battered southeastern port city of Mariupol — across the border to Russia, adding another layer to the humanitarian catastrophe of Russia’s protracted war even amid advances by Ukrainian forces and signs of diplomacy.
