All tip and no iceberg

The Arctic, Ukraine, Russia, India, Bangladesh, China, Israel, and Pakistan.

The iceberg, Frederic Edwin Church, 1891, oil on canvas, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.

The five things you need to know today:

• THE ARCTIC. Frosty alliances could open a new cold front.

• UKRAINE. RUSSIA. Current ceasefire plans offer little reassurance.

• INDIA. RUSSIA. Away games for geopolitics’ second division.

• BANGLADESH. CHINA. Dhaka is damned if it does, dammed if it doesn’t.

• ISRAEL. PALESTINE. Anger mounts against the men who claim to lead.

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THE ARCTIC. True north, false friends

Frosty alliances could open a new cold front.

Vladimir Putin told an Arctic gathering Thursday he was willing to cooperate with all partners and Greenland had nothing to do with Russia. Greenland said it would announce a new coalition government Friday, the day of JD Vance’s visit.

INTELLIGENCE. Donald Trump’s threats to Greenland and Canada have shaken cooperation in the Arctic just as US negotiations with Russia spook NATO. Rather than open new fronts in Eastern Europe, Trump's accommodations to Putin may instead encourage revanchism in the less-defended high north. Svalbard, a demilitarised Norwegian territory governed under a fuzzy 1920 treaty, is particularly vulnerable, as is the 1,800-kilometre Lomonosov Ridge.

FOR BUSINESS. The Lomonosov Ridge extends from Siberia to the Lincoln Sea, near the Pituffik Space Base, which Vance is visiting, and Canada’s Alert signals facility, where Mark Carney’s recently announced radar will be located. Russia claims the entirety of the ridge as part of its continental shelf, overlapping Canadian and Greenlandic (Danish) waters. Svalbard, home to a vital GPS ground station, was central to Cold War tensions and remains contested today.

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UKRAINE. RUSSIA. UN believable

Current ceasefire plans offer little reassurance.

European leaders Thursday vowed support for Kyiv but not all agreed to a "reassurance force" led by Britain and France. Vladimir Putin suggested Ukraine placed under UN administration. Elise Stefanik withdrew as Trump’s UN nominee.

INTELLIGENCE. It was decided Stefanik was more useful in Congress, which says something about the UN and the