Ukrainian troops took back 4 villages in the south from Russian occupation, military source tells CNN

Ukrainian gunners prepare to fire with a self-propelled multiple rocket launcher at a position near a frontline in Donetsk region on August 27. Anatolii Stepanov/AFP/Getty Images

The White House says it has seen reports that Ukraine has begun a counteroffensive against Russian forces in southern Ukraine but does not want to comment further on specific Ukrainian military operations, John Kirby, the communications coordinator for the National Security Council, said.

Kirby did note, however, that regardless of the size, scale and scope of the latest counteroffensive, the Ukrainians “have already had an impact on Russian military capabilities.”

“Because the Russians have had to pull resources from the east simply because of reports that the Ukrainians might be going more on the offense in the south,” Kirby said. “And so they've had to deplete certain units …in certain areas in the East in the Donbass, to respond to what they clearly believed was a looming threat of a counter offensive."

Kirby also said that Russia “continues to have manpower problems” in Ukraine, and is trying to expand its recruitment of fighters inside Russia as well as “entice” some of their conscripts and contract soldiers to serve beyond their time frames.  

That is “because they are experiencing manpower challenges—manpower challenges that are not made any easier by the way they’ve had to respond to reports of a potential counteroffensive by the Ukrainians,” Kirby said.

Kirby also said that “the idea of going on the offense is not new to the Ukrainians.”

“Now I recognize that what we're talking about here is the potential for a major counteroffensive, which is different than going on the offense in a more localized way,” Kirby said. But he said Ukrainian forces “have been taking the fight to the Russians inside” Ukraine for quite some time now, including in the early months of the war around the capital Kyiv.        

“So, it’s not a new development for them to do this,” Kirby said.

What Russia is saying: Moscow on Monday acknowledged Kyiv’s counteroffensive in Ukraine’s south, but said the Ukrainian troops “suffered heavy losses” and “failed miserably” in their “attempted” offensive. 

Ukrainian forces on Monday “attempted an offensive in the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions from three directions,” the Russian defense ministry said in a statement, adding, "as a result of the active defense of the grouping of Russian troops, units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffered heavy losses."

The ministry said that during the fighting, 26 Ukrainian tanks, 23 infantry fighting vehicles, nine other armored fighting vehicles were destroyed and two Su-25 attack aircraft were shot down.

“Another attempt at offensive actions by the enemy failed miserably,” it concluded.

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US tells India its ship rerouted Russia-linked fuel to New York

Indian ship earlier this year picked up oil in mid-seas from Russian tanker, got it refined in western Gujarat state and then took the output to New York, says a top Indian central banker, adding "that's the way war works."

India became one of the biggest importers of Russian oil since the assault on Ukraine, having bought very little of it previously. (Reuters/AP)

The United States has expressed concern to India that its ship was used earlier this year to export fuel made from Russian crude to New York through high-seas transfers, a top Indian central banker said.

US sanctions on Russia for its February attack on Ukraine prohibit imports to the United States of Russian-origin energy products including crude oil, refined fuels, distillates, coal and gas.

"You know that there are sanctions against people who are buying Russian oil, and this was reported to us by the US Treasury," Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor Michael Patra told an audience of government officials and figures in finance and banking.

"It turns out, an Indian ship met a Russian tanker in mid-seas, picked up oil in the mid-seas, came to a port in Gujarat, it was processed in that port and converted into a distillate which actually goes into making single-use plastic," Patra said at the event in Odisha state, held to celebrate 75 years of India's independence.

"The refined output was put back on that ship and it set sail without a destination. In the mid-seas it received the destination so it reached its course, went to New York. So that's the way war works. It works in strange ways."

Trades still going strong

Patra did not name the ship or give any other details.

The US embassy in New Delhi had no comment.

India, the world's third-biggest oil importer and consumer, has become one of the biggest importers of Russian oil since the assault on Ukraine, having bought very little of it previously.

Russia is traditionally India's biggest supplier of military hardware, and New Delhi has not condemned Moscow's aggression towards Ukraine, though it has called for an end to violence.

Source: Reuters

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Ammad Yousaf being kept in illegal custody, lawyer tells court

KARACHI: The lawyer of Ammad Yousaf, appeared before the court in the case of his arrest without a warrant from his residence in DHA, ARY News reported on Wednesday.

Naeem Qureshi advocate, told the court that the police has arrested his client and Head of News of ARY News from his residence last night. “His production before the court being deferred with delaying tactics,” the counsel said.

“My client being kept in illegal custody, the police has yet to submit the FIR in the court,” he said.

“The court will question the police if it is exercising delaying tactics,” the Judge said. “You are Judicial Magistrate, you are empowered to bound the police,” Naeem Qureshi said. “We will see, why the police fail to submit the FIR,” the magistrate said before a break in the hearing.

Earlier, legal experts and prominent lawyers termed the way Ammad Yousaf was arrested as unlawful.

Police officers along with plain-clothed persons had forcibly entered the house of Ammad Yousaf. The raiding team diverted the CCTV cameras of Yousaf’s house, and jumped into the house from the top of the main entrance.

Prominent lawyer Ali Zafar has said that the arrest warrant from magistrate is must before arrest of a person. The persons used to be issued notice before the arrest warrant. An arrest without warrant is a major crime, he said.

“These actions were used to be taken in dictatorships and are illegal in presence of the constitution and a democratic set up. “The Supreme Court could take suo moto notice of such incidents,” Ali Zafar said.

Faisal Chaudhry Advocate said that the government has violated the constitution and the law. The arrest is regretful and this action of the government can be challenged. “Such state actions unleash fascism, it is not an arrest it is abduction,” the lawyer said.

Azhar Siddique termed the arrest blatant terrorism and hoped that the chief justice will take suomoto notice of the arrest.

Legal expert Safdar Shaheen said that the officials have to show warrants before arrest, the police is not authorized to enter in a house without permission. An arrest sans warrant is kidnapping, ” we will challenge the arrest in the court of law.

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Yaser Said 'honor killings' trial: Daughter in 911 call tells police she's 'dying'

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In a 911 call presented to a Dallas courtroom on Thursday in the trial against Yaser Abdel Said, who is accused of killing his two daughters in 2008, one of his daughters can be heard frantically telling police, "I'm dying."

"Help. My dad shot me. I’m dying, I'm dying," his youngest daughter, Sarah, says in the 911 call. "I’m dying, that's what's up.

She can also be heard repeating, "Stop it, stop it, stop it," toward the beginning of the call.

SON OF YASER SAID, FBI TEN MOST WANTED ‘HONOR KILLINGS’ SUSPECT, PLEADS GUILTY TO CONCEALING HIM

Said, 65, is on trial for capital murder after spending 12 years on the run after allegedly murdering his 17-year-old and 18-year-old daughters in what prosecutors have described as "honor killings" because he did not like that they had boyfriends. He faces an automatic life sentence if convicted because prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.

Ironically, the courtroom also learned that the girls' mother and Said's former wife, Patricia Owens, married Said, an Egyptian immigrant who worked at a gas station next door to her childhood home, when she was just 15 and he was 29. Owens had dated his younger brother when she was 14 for "five or six months" before she met Said and got permission from her parents to marry him.

TRIAL OF TEXAS MAN ACCUSED OF MURDERING DAUGHTERS IN ‘HONOR KILLINGS’ FOR HAVING NON-MUSLIM BOYFRIENDS BEGINS

She had their first child — a son named Islam Yaser Said — at 15 in 1988. Her two daughters, Amina and Sarah, were born shortly afterward.

Patricia Owens confirms a photo of herself at age 14, a year before she married her former husband, Yaser Said, when he was 29. (FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth)

Owens testified that "part of" her knew what her husband was capable of doing to her daughters while "part of" her did not. She knew he had a gun in the house and had threatened to use it before. She had previously filed complaints with police against Said for touching her daughters in a sexual manner. She had fled home numerous times with the girls, but she continued to return to Said in Dallas because she was "scared" that he would hurt her, Owens said.

MARYLAND MAN ACCUSED OF KILLING, DISMEMBERING DAUGHTER, YEARS AFTER ALLEGEDLY MURDERED SON AND FRIEND 

After filing police reports about Said allegedly abusing their daughters in the late 1990s, Owens fled to her sister's home in another part of Texas but eventually returned to Said. Owens also testified that she made her daughters recant their statements to police and dropped charges against her husband after they returned home to Said.

When the girls were in high school, they took up jobs at a Kroger grocery store, where Owens also worked, at which point they met two boys named Eric and Edgar who would eventually become their boyfriends. Owens said she hid their relationships from Said, whom she thought might "take away their phones" as punishment if he found out.

Yaser Said allegedly invited his daughter to a meal at Denny's before killing them. (FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth)

Around Christmas in 2007, Owens helped her daughters plot to run away from home so that they could date their boyfriends. The trio, plus Eric and Edgar, traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for several days before eventually returning to their home with Said in Dallas so that Amina could finish school.

NEW YORK MAN INDICTED IN AMBUSH SHOOTING DEATH OF MOM PUSHING BABY IN STROLLER 

"Amina had…a few more months of school, and we were scared that it would mess up her credits for the college she wanted to go to," Owens testified. "After she graduated high school, we were going to move back to Oklahoma."

On Jan. 1, 2008, Said allegedly shot both of his daughters to death after they had both returned home from Tulsa, and he invited them out for a meal at Denny's. Said, a taxi driver, drove the girls in his taxi that evening.

Yaser Said, a taxi driver, is accused of murdering his two daughters in his cab on the night of Jan. 1, 2008. (FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth)

Amina’s boyfriend testified that she "knew she was gonna die" when she reluctantly went home on New Year's Day. He said her last words to him were that she would never see him again. She returned home on Jan. 1, 2008 and was murdered that night. 

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Authorities found the girls riddled with bullets inside their father’s cab, which was parked outside a hotel in Irving, Texas.

Owens previously told Fox News that Said had become enraged that his daughters had boyfriends who weren’t Muslim. He said he didn't want to raise "whores as daughters," Owens said. After her daughters' killings, Owens said she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and extreme depression, among other ailments, and she later divorced Said.

Fox News' Brie Stimson and Greg Norman contributed to this report.

Audrey Conklin is a digital reporter for FOX Business and Fox News. Email tips to audrey.conklin@fox.com or on Twitter at @audpants.

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