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In a landmark ruling that marks a milestone for international justice for atrocities committed by the Islamic State (IS) against the Yazidi minority, Germany’s Munich Higher Regional Court has convicted an Iraqi couple of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and membership in the IS extremist group, over their role in enslaving two underage Yazidi girls in northern Iraq more than a decade ago.

The male defendant, identified only as Twana H.S. under German privacy regulations, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Monday following a months-long trial. His co-defendant and former wife, Asia R.A., who was a minor at the time of the crimes, received a nine-and-a-half year juvenile sentence. The pair were taken into custody in the southern German state of Bavaria in 2024 after years of investigation into their alleged ties to IS and participation in the group’s systematic persecution of the Yazidi community.

The background of this case stretches back to 2014, when IS fighters seized large swathes of territory across northern Iraq and eastern Syria, launching a coordinated campaign to eliminate the Yazidi people, a Kurdish-speaking religious minority with ancient roots in the region. According to historical accounts and international investigations, thousands of Yazidi men were executed in mass killings, while tens of thousands of women and children were abducted, trafficked as sex slaves, and forced into hard labor by IS militants. German law formally recognizes this coordinated campaign as an act of genocide, a designation echoed by the United Nations and dozens of national governments.

Court documents and prosecution accounts lay out a detailed timeline of the couple’s radicalization and alleged crimes. Twana H.S. first arrived in Germany as an asylum seeker in the early 2000s, building a life in Munich where he worked as a hairdresser and fathered a child. German outlet Der Spiegel reports that while his initial asylum application was rejected, he was granted permission to remain in the country as the parent of a German citizen. After becoming radicalized at a local mosque in Munich, he returned to Iraq in 2015, where he married Asia R.A. under Islamic law and the pair joined IS, remaining active members of the group from October 2015 through December 2017.

Prosecutors told the court that in autumn 2015, at Asia R.A.’s request, Twana H.S. purchased a five-year-old Yazidi girl from a slave bazaar in the IS-held city of Mosul. Less than two years later, in early October 2017, the couple bought a second, 12-year-old Yazidi girl to add to their household. The pair forced both children to perform unpaid household labor and childcare work, barred them from practicing their Yazidi faith, and subjected them to repeated physical abuse. Prosecutors detailed specific accounts of violence: the children were beaten on multiple occasions, sometimes with heavy solid objects, and Asia R.A. once scalded the younger girl’s hand with boiling water as punishment. Most severely, Twana H.S. was found guilty of repeatedly raping both child victims, while his wife helped facilitate the abuse by preparing the girls and the room for the assaults.

During the trial, the court heard harrowing firsthand testimony from the older of the two survivors, who detailed years of beatings, forced labor, and sexual violence, according to local outlet BR News. Tragically, the younger victim remains missing to this day.

The trial was held in Germany under the legal principle of universal jurisdiction, a framework that allows national courts to prosecute individuals for severe international crimes including genocide and war crimes, regardless of where the offenses were committed. This principle has allowed Germany to hold dozens of IS members and associates accountable for atrocities carried out in Iraq and Syria over the past decade.

In court, Asia R.A., who has since separated from Twana H.S., offered a formal apology for her actions. In her final statement to the court, she simply said, “I’m sorry.” Twana H.S., by contrast, declined to make any statement or enter a plea during the proceedings.

As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its third year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy touched down in Paris on Monday for high-stakes talks with two dozen European leaders from the pro-Ukraine Coalition of the Willing, a gathering that signals unified Western resolve to back Kyiv’s fight against Russian aggression. The summit comes amid a sharp intensification of cross-border drone attacks, shifting battlefield momentum, and urgent negotiations to ramp up Ukraine’s defensive capabilities against relentless Russian aerial assaults.

Parallel to the Paris talks, European Union foreign ministers gathered separately in Brussels to deliberate on Ukraine’s pressing military and humanitarian needs, as well as the growing threat Russia poses to European continental security. Both Kyiv and its European backers are moving to capitalize on Ukraine’s recent battlefield gains to push Russian President Vladimir Putin toward meaningful peace negotiations—though Moscow has refused any compromise, even after a year of peace efforts led by the U.S. Trump administration.

Military analysts and Western officials attribute Ukraine’s recent advances to major breakthroughs in domestic drone development, which has given Kyiv a critical edge on the battlefield. Targeted strikes on Russian supply routes behind front lines have drained the Russian military’s operational momentum, forcing Moscow to slow its advances and accept extremely high personnel and equipment losses. Most notably, Ukraine’s sustained campaign targeting Russian supply lines into Russian-annexed Crimea has triggered the worst fuel shortage on the Black Sea peninsula since 2014, dealing a major blow to the Kremlin’s official narrative that it is winning the war.

A top priority for Zelenskyy at the Paris summit is accelerating plans for joint European-Ukrainian development of anti-ballistic air defense systems, a critical capability to block Russia’s devastating attacks on Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure. In remarks posted to social media Monday following another round of overnight Russian airstrikes across Ukraine, Zelenskyy emphasized, “Everyone in the world sees that Ukraine needs more air defense, more protection of life.” A recent pledge from U.S. President Donald Trump to grant Ukraine a license to domestically produce Patriot air defense systems has been hailed as a potential breakthrough, though experts and Ukrainian officials caution it will likely take years for this policy to translate into operational weapons in Ukraine’s arsenal.

The Paris Coalition of the Willing gathering, which officially includes more than 30 pro-Ukraine nations, brought roughly 25 heads of state and government to the French capital. The high turnout is widely interpreted as a public demonstration of long-term European commitment to Ukraine, and a unified warning to Moscow amid ongoing Russian efforts to test European resilience against escalation. In a separate development Monday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced that France would summon the Russian ambassador to Paris and impose new sanctions on Russian hackers, in response to what Barrot described as “a vast cyber campaign aimed at sabotage and espionage, carried out by Russia in about 10 European countries.”

The spillover impact of the war is already being felt by Ukraine’s neighboring countries. On Monday, Moldova’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that a drone launched during Russian overnight attacks on Ukraine’s Odesa region crashed and detonated on Moldovan territory, calling the incident “serious and unacceptable.”

Zelenskyy’s trip to Paris also comes against a backdrop of major domestic and political shifts in Kyiv and Washington. The visit follows the recent passing of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Kyiv’s most steadfast supporters in Washington, whose death has raised Ukrainian concerns over future U.S. support. It also comes amid an ongoing major government reshuffle in Kyiv, which saw Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko step down from her post on Sunday.

Over the past 48 hours, drone activity between the two warring sides has reached new levels of intensity. Ukraine launched a massive wave of domestically developed long-range drones and missiles targeting deep inside Russian territory, matching and even exceeding the scale of relentless Russian aerial assaults on Ukraine. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced that Russian air defenses shot down 350 Ukrainian drones headed toward the capital since late Sunday, including 50 in the immediate Moscow area. Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the Moscow region, reported that 81 drones were downed overnight, with three civilian deaths and three injuries recorded in a strike on the Pionersky settlement outside Istra, where five private homes were destroyed by fire.

In a parallel wave of Russian attacks on Ukraine, the Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia launched 134 long-range strike drones and three guided aviation missiles across Ukrainian territory. Ukrainian air defenses shot down or jammed all three missiles and 123 of the drones, though six remaining drones caused damage at five locations across the country. In the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, regional military administration head Ivan Fedorov reported that over 70 residents have been hospitalized after recent Russian strikes damaged 11 residential apartment blocks.

Russian security officials also announced Monday that they had thwarted a large-scale Ukrainian drone plot targeting two key Russian air bases: the Ukrainka air base in the far eastern Amur region, and the Shagol air base in the southern Ural region of Chelyabinsk. According to Russia’s Federal Security Service, the domestic intelligence agency, small drones were smuggled into Russia’s western Bryansk region via air balloons and larger transport drones, then transported by car to the vicinity of the targets by Ukrainian agents. The FSB said it had arrested the Ukrainian agents and their accomplices, and seized 24 drones, calling the alleged plot “unprecedented in its scale and the level of threat” to Russian military infrastructure. The foiled plot comes just over a year after Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, a covert strike that destroyed or damaged nearly a third of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet after drones were smuggled into Russian territory, per Ukrainian official accounts.

Perched at the crossroads of the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, just nine miles from North Africa, the iconic Rock of Gibraltar has stood for centuries as a flashpoint of geopolitical tension, sovereignty disputes and divided communities. Now, a landmark post-Brexit agreement is set to erase one of Europe’s most politically charged border checks, bringing sweeping change for tens of thousands of cross-border workers and businesses on both sides of the divide.

For Shilpi Chotrani, one of 15,000 Spanish commuters who cross into Gibraltar for work each day, the coming change cannot come soon enough. Every weekday, she rides her bicycle from her home in La Línea de la Concepción, a Spanish town that hugs Gibraltar’s northern border, to her human resources role at a Gibraltarian shipping and tourism firm. What should be a five-minute ride often stretches to 30 minutes or more, as rush-hour queues snarl the international border crossing. “The fact that there is a border between us is ridiculous,” Chotrani says. “I don’t think a fence should separate people from one place and another. This is going to be a great step forward for both sides, and this should have been done decades ago.”

Starting July 15, that border fence will be gone, as part of a painstakingly negotiated agreement between the United Kingdom, the European Union and Spain that resolves one of the most intractable challenges of Brexit. As a British Overseas Territory sharing a land border with the EU member Spain, Gibraltar faced unique uncertainty after the UK voted to leave the bloc in 2016. Ninety-six percent of Gibraltarians voted to remain in the EU, driven by longstanding fears that Brexit would strengthen Spanish sovereignty claims over the territory and disrupt the close economic and social ties that bind the Rock to the rest of Europe.

After years of back-and-forth negotiations, the agreement aligns Gibraltar with the EU’s Schengen Area of free movement and the European Customs Union, eliminating routine border checks for people and goods moving between Spain and Gibraltar. Only travelers arriving directly from non-Schengen countries, such as the UK itself, will still need to present passports for checks at Gibraltar’s airport and port.

Local leaders say the change is historic, more than a century after the first border fence was erected in 1908 and more than 40 years after Francisco Franco’s 13-year blockade of the territory was lifted. For La Línea de la Concepción, one of the most economically deprived regions of southern Spain with an unemployment rate hovering near 30 percent, the border opening is expected to unlock major economic opportunity. Roughly a third of all revenue for local businesses in the town comes from Gibraltarian clients, and faster cross-border movement is expected to help narrow the stark economic gap between wealthy Gibraltar—one of the highest per-capita income jurisdictions in the world—and its poorer Spanish neighbor.

“This is something historic,” said Juan Franco, mayor of La Línea de la Concepción. “After a decade of uncertainty over Gibraltar’s future after Brexit, this solution will end up having a positive effect for us.”

Fabian Picardo, Chief Minister of Gibraltar, framed the agreement as a stark reversal of centuries of division. “One of the key things which has defined the past eight generations of Gibraltarians is the restrictions at the frontier,” he said from the Gibraltarian government’s headquarters. The new framework will bring “complete and utter fluidity of people and goods” between Gibraltar, Spain and the wider EU, he explained, eliminating the rush-hour delays that have long suppressed visitor numbers and business activity. “This will be huge for human relations, it will be huge for business, it will be huge for frontier workers. It will be a new dawn for Gibraltar’s relationship with Spain and the EU.”

Spain’s foreign minister José Manuel Albares has echoed that optimism, calling the agreement the start of “a new era” for the territory. That said, the deal comes with new obligations for Gibraltar: all goods sold on the Rock must now comply with EU product regulations, and a new transaction tax will replace the current import duty regime. Starting at 15 percent in 2026 before rising to 17 percent, the new tax addresses longstanding EU concerns about Gibraltar’s zero-VAT regime creating unfair competitive advantages, though it has sparked some nervousness among local businesses.

John Isola, managing director of the Anglo Hispano Company which operates multiple restaurants and bars across Gibraltar, says the Gibraltarian business community feels widespread relief that years of post-Brexit uncertainty have finally ended without the imposition of a hard border. He calls the framework “a good compromise” that will boost visitor numbers and trade, but acknowledges that the new regulations and tax rules bring growing pains. “For anybody importing goods the scenario changes completely in terms of the paperwork that one is going to have to present to get the goods in,” Isola said. Adhering to EU product standards for imports from the UK and other non-EU countries is also a notable new challenge, he added.

In recent weeks, crews have worked overnight to tear down the remaining sections of the border fence in preparation for the July 15 launch, though the agreement still awaits final approval from the UK and European Parliaments before it is fully formalized. For a territory that has been defined by centuries of conflict and division, the coming opening marks one of the most significant turning points in its modern history.