Russia may be having major difficulties in Ukraine, but it remains a vast power in the north and the Arctic, where climate change is opening new sea routes for trade and trouble.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, visiting Sweden, said he hoped that objections to adding the country to the alliance would be ironed out by midsummer, when member states meet in Lithuania.
New intelligence reporting amounts to the first significant known lead about who was responsible for the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines that carried natural gas from Russia to Europe.