A showdown between Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin isn’t happening, but fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and growing tensions between China and the West will be at the fore when leaders of the world’s biggest economies gather in tropical Bali this week. The Group of 20 members begin talks on the Indonesian resort island Tuesday under the hopeful theme of “recover together, recover stronger.” While Putin is staying away, Biden will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and get to know new British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni. The summit’s official priorities of health, sustainable energy and digital transformation are likely to be overshadowed by fears of a sputtering global economy and geopolitical tensions centered on the war in Ukraine. The nearly 9-month-old conflict has disrupted trade in oil, natural gas and grain, and shifted much of the summit's focus to food and energy security. The U.S. and allies in Europe and Asia, meanwhile, increasingly are squaring off against a more assertive China, leaving emerging G-20 economies like India, Brazil and host Indonesia to walk a tightrope between bigger powers. Indonesian President Joko Widodo has tried to bridge rifts within the G-20 over the war in Ukraine. Widodo, also known as Jokowi, became the first Asian leader since the invasion to visit both Russia and Ukraine in the summer. He invited President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, not a G-20 member, to join the summit. Zelenskyy is expected to participate online. Read more: US supports India for G20 presidency “One of the priorities for Jokowi is to ease the tension of war and geopolitical risk,” said Bhima Yudhistira, director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta. Last year’s G-20 summit in Rome was the first in-person gathering of members since the pandemic, though the leaders of Russia and China didn’t attend. This year’s event is bracketed by the United Nations climate conference in Egypt and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Cambodia, which Biden and some other G-20 leaders are attending, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Thailand right afterward. The American president vowed to work with Southeast Asian nations on Saturday, saying “we’re going to build a better future that we all want to see” in a region where China is working to grow its influence. On Sunday, Biden huddled with the leaders of Japan and South Korea to discuss China and the threat from North Korea. One question hanging over the Bali summit is whether Russia will agree to extend the U.N. Black Sea Grain Initiative, which is up for renewal Nov. 19. The July deal allowed major global grain producer Ukraine to resume exports from ports that had been largely blocked for months because of the war. Russia briefly pulled out of the deal late last month only to rejoin it days later. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Saturday called for more pressure on Russia to extend the deal, saying Moscow must "stop playing hunger games with the world.” As leaders contend with conflicts and geopolitical tensions, they face the risk that efforts to tame inflation will extinguish post-pandemic recoveries or cause debilitating financial crises. The war’s repercussions are being felt from the remotest villages of Asia and Africa to the most modern industries. It has amplified disruptions to energy supplies, shipping and food security, pushing prices sharply higher and complicating efforts to stabilize the world economy after the upheavals of the pandemic. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is urging the G-20 to provide financial help for the developing world. "My priority in Bali will be to speak up for countries in the Global South that have been battered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate emergency, and now face crises in food, energy and finance — exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and crushing debt,” Guterres said. The International Monetary Fund is forecasting 2.7% global growth in 2023, while private sector economists’ estimates are as low as 1.5%, down from about 3% this year, the slowest growth since the oil crisis of the early 1980s. China has remained somewhat insulated from soaring inflation, mainly because it is struggling to reverse an economic slump that is weighing on global growth. Read more: Putin won’t be at G20 summit, avoiding possible confrontation with US The Chinese economy, the world’s second largest, grew at a 3.9% pace in the latest quarter. But economists say activity is slowing under the pressure of pandemic controls, a crackdown on technology companies and a downturn in the real estate sector. Forecasters have cut estimates of China’s annual economic growth to as low as 3%. That would be less than half of last year’s 8.1% and the second lowest in decades. Chinese President Xi will be coming to the summit emboldened by his appointment to an unusual third term as party chairman, making him China’s strongest leader in decades. It's only his second foreign trip since early 2020, following a visit to Central Asia where he met Putin in September. Biden and Xi will hold their first in-person meeting since Biden became president in January 2021 on the event’s sidelines Monday. The U.S. is at odds with China over a host of issues, including human rights, technology and the future of the self-ruled island of Taiwan. The U.S. sees China as its biggest global competitor, and that rivalry is only likely to grow as Beijing seeks to expand its influence in the years to come. The European Union is also reassessing its relationship with China as it seeks to reduce its trade dependency on the country. Biden said he plans to talk with Xi about topics including Taiwan, trade policies and Beijing’s relationship with Russia. “What I want to do ... is lay out what each of our red lines are,” Biden said last week. Many developing economies are caught between fighting inflation and trying to nurse along recoveries from the pandemic. Host Indonesia’s economy grew at a 5.7% pace in the last quarter, one of the fastest among G-20 nations. But growth among resource exporters like Indonesia is forecast to cool as falling prices for oil, coal and other commodities end windfalls from the past year’s price boom. At a time when many countries are struggling to afford imports of oil, gas and food while also meeting debt repayments, pressure is building on those most vulnerable to climate change to double down on shifting to more sustainable energy supplies. In Bali, the talks are also expected to focus on finding ways to hasten the transition away from coal and other fossil fuels. The G-20 was founded in 1999 originally as a forum to address economic challenges. It includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union. Spain holds a permanent guest seat. Some observers of the bloc, like Josh Lipsky, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, question whether the G-20 can even function as geopolitical rifts grow. “I’m skeptical that it can survive long-term in its current format,” he said in a briefing last week. That makes things especially tough on host Indonesia. “This is not the G-20 they signed up for,” Lipsky said. “The last thing they wanted was to be in the middle of this geopolitical fight, this war in Europe, and be the crossroads of it. But that’s where they are.”

As 191 countries approach Friday’s end to a four-week conference to review the landmark U.N. treaty aimed at curbing the spread of nuclear weapons, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and takeover of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and rivalries between the West and China were posing key obstacles to agreement on a final document. Argentine Ambassador Gustavo Zlauvinen, president of the conference reviewing the 50-year-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is considered the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament, circulated a 35-page draft final document on Thursday. After listening to objections from countries at a closed-door session, diplomats said he was planning to revise the document for a final closed-door discussion Friday morning, ahead of an open meeting in the afternoon to end the conference. Any document must be approved by all parties to the treaty and it’s uncertain whether an agreement will be reached before the conference ends. There is a possibility that only a brief statement reaffirming support for the NPT might get unanimous support. The NPT review conference is supposed to be held every five years but was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The last one in 2015 ended without an agreement because of serious differences over establishing a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction. Those differences haven’t gone away but are being discussed, and the draft final document obtained by The Associated Press would reaffirm the importance of establishing a nuclear-free Mideast zone. So this is not viewed as a major stumbling block this year. The issue that has changed the dynamics of the conference is Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning that Russia is a “potent” nuclear power and any attempt to interfere would lead to “consequences you have never seen,” and his decision soon after to put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert. Putin has since rolled back, saying that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” a message reiterated by a senior Russian official on the opening day of the NPT conference on Aug. 2. In addition, Russia’s occupation of Europe’s biggest nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine, where Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of shelling, has raised fears of a nuclear disaster. Earlier this week, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council that the Biden administration is seeking a consensus final document that strengthens the treaty and acknowledges “the manner in which Russia’s war and irresponsible actions in Ukraine seriously undermine the NPT’s main purpose.” Read:Putin orders troop replenishment in face of Ukraine losses Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the United States and its allies at that council meeting of “politicizing the work on the final document, putting their geopolitical interests in punishing Russia above their collective needs in strengthening global security.” “Against the backdrop of the actual sabotage by the collective West of the global security architecture, Russia continues to do everything possible to keep at least its key, vital elements afloat,” Nebenzia said. The 35-page draft document has at least three specific references to the Zaporizhzhia plant, including expressing “grave concern” over its security, the military activities conducted at or near it, and the loss of control over the facility by Ukrainian authorities. The draft expresses support for efforts by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to visit the plant and ensure the non-diversion of nuclear material. Under the NPT’s provisions, the five original nuclear powers — the United States, China, Russia (then the Soviet Union), Britain and France — agreed to negotiate toward eliminating their arsenals someday and nations without nuclear weapons promised not to acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for a guarantee to be able to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. India and Pakistan, which didn’t join the NPT, went on to get the bomb. So did North Korea, which ratified the pact but later announced it was withdrawing. Non-signatory Israel, which is believed to have a nuclear arsenal but neither confirms nor denies it, has been an obstacle in discussions of a Mideast zone free of weapons of mass destruction. Nonetheless, the treaty has been credited with limiting the number of nuclear newcomers (U.S. President John F. Kennedy once foresaw as many as 20 nuclear-armed nations) as a framework for international cooperation on disarmament. The draft final document would express deep concern “that the threat of nuclear weapons use today is higher than at any time since the heights of the Cold War and at the deteriorated international security environment.” Diplomats and nuclear experts monitoring the closed-door negotiations have cited other differences that could block agreement on a final document. These include China’s demands that it mention the U.S.-UK-Australia deal to provide Australia with a nuclear-powered submarine and nuclear-sharing in Europe, and demands by some countries strongly opposed to nuclear weapons for immediate nuclear disarmament to be included, which some Western countries call unrealistic.

The head of the U.N. refugee agency says “Europe should be much more worried” that more people from Africa’s Sahel region could seek to move north to escape violence, climate crises like droughts and floods and the impact of growing food shortages caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Filippo Grandi, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, called for more efforts to build peace in the world as conflicts and crises like those in Ukraine, Venezuela, Myanmar, Syria and beyond have driven over 100 million people to leave their homes — both within their own countries and abroad. UNHCR, the U.N.’s refugee agency, on Thursday issued its latest “Global Trends” report, which found over 89 million people had been displaced by conflict, climate change, violence and human rights abuses by 2021. The figure has since swelled after at least 12 million people fled their homes in Ukraine to other parts of the country or abroad following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion. READ: Myanmar military killed at least 142 children in past 16 months: UN expert This year, the world is also facing growing food insecurity — Ukraine is a key European breadbasket and the war has greatly hurt grain exports  The African Union, whose continent relies on imports of wheat and other food from Ukraine, has appealed for help to access grain that is blocked in Ukrainian silos and unable to leave Ukrainian ports amid a Russian naval blockade in the Black Sea. UNHCR said 2021 marked the 15th straight year of annual increase in the number of people displaced within their own countries – to more than 53 million. Among the reasons: Rising violence in places like Myanmar, war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region and extremist insurgencies in the Sahel, particularly in Burkina Faso and Mali. Grandi said the Sahel has already faced years of droughts and floods; inequality in wealth, education and access to healthcare; and poor governance. Growing food insecurity and conflict have added to the pressures.  “People are still suffering — they do not have food, do not have water, do not have shelter and have to flee,” Grandi said. “I’m very worried about Sahel. And I don’t think that we talk enough about this region that is, by the way, so close to Europe. And I think Europe should be much more worried.”  He noted that the world was facing events that forced refugees to flee even before the war in Ukraine.  “We are now all focused on Ukraine very much, but Ukraine comes after a line of other emergencies,” he said.

As Western leaders congratulate themselves for their speedy and severe responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they’re also scratching their heads with uncertainty about what their actions will accomplish. The U.S., NATO and the European Union have focused on strangling Russia’s economy and arming Ukrainian fighters. But it’s unclear how this will stop the war. No one knows what President Vladimir Putin is thinking, but there’s no reason to believe that even the toughest measures will shatter his determination to force the Western-leaning former Soviet republic back into Moscow’s orbit. They may not say it publicly, but U.S. officials and their NATO allies don’t see a breaking point for Putin — either an economic toll so severe or battlefield losses so devastating — that would convince him to order his troops home and allow Ukraine’s leaders to govern in peace. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Putin,” Biden said as he announced a U.S. ban on Russian energy imports on Tuesday. But Ukraine might not be a complete defeat for Putin either. Read:US, allies to revoke 'most favored nation' status for Russia The sanctions and military aid may have been effective in slowing the Russian advance in Ukraine and perhaps discouraging Putin from targeting other countries. They may serve as a warning for other powerful countries tempted to target weaker neighbors. But Western officials have been vague about how the actions will end the fighting. One of the most direct answers came from the third-ranking U.S. diplomat, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland. She said Tuesday that internal, rather than external, pressure on Putin will be more effective. “The way this conflict will end is when Putin realizes that this adventure has put his own leadership standing at risk with his own military, with his own people,” she testified before Congress. “He will have to change course, or the Russian people take matters into their own hands.” A more provocative remark came from Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who called for the Russian people to assassinate Putin. The White House quickly distanced itself from that comment. In fact, there is no sign yet that his grip on power has loosened. There’s also the frightening uncertainty about how a nuclear-armed Putin, if cornered, would respond to a genuine threat to his power if one were to arise. And no one is counting on an outright military victory by Ukraine. While Ukrainian fighters have put up a remarkable defense and are determined to fight for as long as Russian forces remain on their soil, they are badly outgunned and would be hard-pressed to push Russian troops back across the border. Meanwhile, NATO nations aren’t about to risk triggering World War III by joining the fight in defense of a non-member state. Against this backdrop, a diplomatic solution appears unlikely. Russia has only hardened its demands since launching the invasion last month and attempts at diplomacy by French, Israeli and Turkish leaders have thus far proven fruitless. The top U.S. and Russian diplomats aren’t even talking to each other and recent lower-level communications have focused almost entirely on the expulsions of diplomats from their two countries. “Nobody knows how this is going to end and it’s going to take some time to see how the Russians decide to react to the obvious dead-end that they’ve got themselves into,” said Jeff Rathke, a European expert and president of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University. “Until the Russians are ready to negotiate something serious and real, there’s not much you can do,” he said. He added that the U.S. and Europe should resist the temptation to negotiate themselves with Putin over Ukraine, especially as the economic costs of isolating Moscow mount, particularly in Europe. “The endgame has to be decided by the Ukrainians in terms of what they will accept,” he said. Read:China amplifies unsupported Russian claim of Ukraine biolabs “I can’t see this ending in any way good for Ukraine as long as Putin is in power,” said Ian Kelly, a retired U.S. diplomat and former ambassador to Georgia who now teaches international relations at Northwestern University. “He’s put out his maximalist goal, which is basically surrender, and that’s something the Ukrainians aren’t going to be able to accept and the Russians are not going to be able to implement.” “Withdrawal for him is death. It’s too weak,” Kelly said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged the limits of the West’s ability to end the conflict. “What we’re looking at is whether or not President Putin will decide to try to finally cut the losses that he’s inflicted on himself and inflicted on the Russian people. We can’t decide that for him,” he said Wednesday. Appearing beside Blinken, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss suggested the Western response may go beyond hopes of getting Russia out of Ukraine. “Putin must fail,” she said. “We know from history that aggressors only understand one thing, and that is strength. We know that if we don’t do enough now, other aggressors around the world will be emboldened. And we know that if Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, there will be terrible implications for European and global security.” With the uncertainty, U.S. officials have said they are convinced of only one thing: that an angry and frustrated Putin will pour more troops and firepower into Ukraine and the bloodshed will get worse before the situation approaches any return to normalcy. CIA Director William Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, told lawmakers this week he believes Putin has profoundly miscalculated the resistance and determination that his forces would meet from Ukrainians. He also said it may soon dawn on Putin that he will not be able to occupy Ukraine or impose a Russia-friendly regime there without facing years, if not decades, of fierce and bloody opposition. “Where that leads, I think, is for an ugly next few weeks in which he doubles down with scant regard for civilian casualties, in which urban fighting can get even uglier,” Burns said.

Consumer inflation in the United States likely set another 40-year high in February — and it won’t even reflect the oil and gas spikes of the past week, which will likely catapult prices even higher in coming months. Energy prices, which soared after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, jumped again this week after President Joe Biden said the United States would bar oil imports from Russia. A report Thursday from the government is expected to show that consumer inflation leapt 7.9% in February compared with 12 months earlier, according to data provider FactSet. That would be the biggest such increase since January 1982. Analysts have also estimated that prices rose 0.7% from January to February. Read:Asia stocks mixed after Wall St falls, US bans Russian oil For most Americans, inflation is running far ahead of the pay raises that many have received in the past year, making it harder for them to afford necessities like food, gas and rent. As a consequence, inflation has become the top political threat to Biden and congressional Democrats as the midterm elections draw closer. Small business people now say in surveys that it’s their primary economic concern, too. Seeking to stem the inflation surge, the Federal Reserve is set to raise interest rates several times this year beginning with a modest hike next week. The Fed faces a delicate challenge, though: If it tightens credit too aggressively this year, it risks undercutting the economy and perhaps triggering a recession. For now, solid consumer spending, spurred in part by a further reopening of the economy as omicron fades, on top of higher wages and pricier gas, will likely send inflation higher for months. Gas prices spiked to $4.25 Wednesday, up about 55 cents a gallon just since the end of February. Oil prices did fall back Wednesday on reports that the United Arab Emirates will urge fellow OPEC members to boost production. U.S. oil was down 12% to $108.70 a barrel, though still up sharply from about $90 before Russia’s invasion. Yet energy markets have been so volatile that it’s impossible to know if the decline will stick. If Europe were to join the U.S. and the United Kingdom and bar Russian oil imports, analysts estimate that prices could soar as high as $160 a barrel. The economic consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine have upended a broad assumption among many economists and at the Fed: That inflation would begin to ease this spring because prices rose so much in March and April of 2021 that comparisons to a year ago would decline. “Any hope that inflation will peak in the near term is long gone,” said Eric Winograd, senior economist at asset manager AllianceBernstein. Should gas prices remain near their current levels, Winograd estimates that inflation could reach as high as 9% in March or April. The cost of wheat, corn, cooking oils and such metals as aluminum and nickel have also soared since the invasion. Ukraine and Russia are leading exporters of those commodities. Even before Russia’s invasion, inflation was not only rising sharply but also broadening into additional sectors of the economy. Many prices have jumped over the past year because heavy demand has run into short supplies of items like autos, building materials and household goods. But in other areas unaffected by the pandemic, like rents, costs are also surging at the fastest pace in decades. Steady job growth is encouraging more people to move into their own apartments, elevating rental costs by the most in two decades. Apartment vacancy rates have reached their lowest level since 1984. In the final three months of last year, wages and salaries jumped 4.5%, the sharpest such increase in at least 20 years. Those pay increases have, in turn, led many companies to raise prices to offset their higher labor costs. Read:Oil prices jump, shares sink as Ukraine conflict deepens Soaring energy costs pose a particular challenge for the Fed. Higher gas prices tend to both accelerate inflation and weaken economic growth. That’s because as their paychecks are eroded at the gas pump, consumers typically spend less in other ways. That pattern is similar to the “stagflation” dynamic that made the economy of the 1970s miserable for many Americans. Most economists, though, say they think the U.S. economy is growing strongly enough that another recession is unlikely, even with higher inflation.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put Switzerland’s much-vaunted neutrality to the test — and along with it, the country's traditional role as international intermediary and reputation as a safe haven for the assets of Russia's richest and most powerful. The Swiss executive branch stopped short of announcing unilateral sanctions against Russian interests after Moscow’s blistering military action in Ukraine. Instead, the Federal Council opted to fall in line with the European Union and pledge that Russian individuals and companies hit with EU sanctions won’t be able to evade them in Switzerland, which is not one of the EU's 27 member states. The government said Friday that financial “intermediaries” in Switzerland were now banned from starting new business relationships with 363 Russian people and four Russian companies. Any existing business must be reported to the Swiss economic affairs secretariat. Further steps are under consideration. While hardly a crackdown compared to other Western sanctions aimed at punishing Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, the impact could be felt. The rich Alpine nation has been the biggest recipient of transactions by Russian private individuals — ahead of Britain, Spain, Luxembourg and the United States, according to a report compiled by the Swiss Embassy in Moscow. Read:Ukraine rejects Belarus as location for talks “Switzerland has for years been by far the most important destination worldwide for rich Russians to manage their wealth,” the report said, adding that net transfers of Russian taxpayers to Switzerland totaled $2.5 billion in 2020. The Swiss news agency SDA-ATS reported net transfers of $1.8 billion in the first half of 2021. Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin, the head of the federal economic affairs department, noted that Switzerland was bound to follow U.N. sanctions but could decide whether to follow EU sanctions based on criteria such as foreign policy and legal aspects — including legislation that has enshrined “neutrality” into Swiss law. Swiss authorities are in essence extending measures set up in 2014 after Russia's takeover of Crimea, in which they also sought to ensure that EU sanctions were not dodged in Switzerland, to hundreds more people and businesses — but going further. “Switzerland is thus taking a tougher line with regard to Russia,” Parmelin told reporters in Bern, the capital. German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said Friday that “every country decides in a sovereign way about its actions ... If you were to ask me whether I’d be happy if Switzerland supported the (EU) sanctions, then I’d clearly say ‘yes’.” However, Switzerland is also anxious to safeguard its role as diplomatic go-between for some countries — one of which is Russia. The Swiss government represents the interests of the former Soviet republic of Georgia in Moscow and Russia’s interests in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, under an arrangement set up after those two countries broke off bilateral ties during their conflict in 2008. “It’s important to the Federal Council that implementing these measures doesn’t cut off talks between Switzerland and the countries affected,” said Parmelin. “Switzerland wants to be able to offer its services to the countries in conflict if these countries wish.” “If Switzerland were to automatically adopt the sanctions imposed by the EU or other countries, it could no longer credibly play the traditional role for which it is valued worldwide,” he added. The respected Swiss daily Tages Anzeiger reported Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked his Swiss counterpart on Saturday to act as a neutral mediator between Ukraine and Russia, and help work toward a cease-fire between the two countries, notably in the context of a Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva opening Monday. The Swiss Foreign Ministry did not confirm any such communication. Geneva hosted a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden in June, as well as a couple of bilateral meetings in recent weeks as tensions brewed over Ukraine. The Swiss relish their role and reputation as a skilled, neutral host for such international gatherings and as a hub for international organizations like the United Nations and the international Red Cross in Geneva. The push-and-pull felt by the Swiss could grow. Some Western countries announced or were preparing individual sanctions against Putin and his foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, including possible travel bans. Switzerland is unlikely to go that far: Lavrov himself is expected to be on hand in Geneva on Tuesday for a session of the Human Rights Council. Read: Ukraine invasion puts Russia’s elite sports status at risk Economic concerns — not just the political neutrality that is enshrined in Swiss law — could also figure into the Swiss calculations. Geneva is a major hub for commodities trading like oil and wheat that matter to Russia and Ukraine, and is reported to be a favored stomping ground for Russian oligarchs and other economic elites drawn to low-tax and privacy-minded banks and policies in Switzerland. The June report by the Swiss Embassy in Moscow said roughly 80 percent of Russia's commodities trade goes through the Swiss financial services centers of Geneva, Zug, Lugano and Zurich. Major Russian energy and commodities firms have offices in Switzerland. According to the Bank of International Settlements, Russian deposits in Swiss financial institutions totaled the equivalent of nearly $11 billion at the end of the third quarter last year. That represented about 30 percent of the total Russian deposits overseas of nearly $36 billion, according to BIS figures.