RUSSIA: There is a cartoon in this week's Moscow Times which says it all about this weekend's G8 summit of industrialised nations in Russia: the seven guest leaders sit side-by-side at a banquet, heads bowed over their food, while a huge Russian bear sitting on the end thumps the table and breaks the crockery.
This is the image most Western leaders have resigned themselves to as they trudge east to St Petersburg for a testy few days at the first major summit hosted by Russia's president, Vladimir Putin.
Nobody thinks that Russia can be stopped from veering ever further from the path of democracy, but nobody wants to upset the bear. Especially on his home soil. Russia has too many nuclear weapons, and too much oil and gas, to be recklessly annoyed.
A senior Western diplomat told me this week: "It's not a matter of coddling Putin, it's a matter of doing business with him." It is indeed. Russia's oil and gas bonanza - it now produces as much of the black stuff as Saudi Arabia - means a hungry market for everything from BMWs to mobile phones.
Massive lobbying by big business, and especially big oil interests, has ensured that democracy, or the lack of it, will be a low priority at the summit as Western leaders scramble for fresh contracts for their national firms.
The US is leading the way, with Washington reportedly prepared to admit Russia into the World Trade Organisation, ignoring a long list of objections, if only the Kremlin will let US oil companies develop the giant Stockman oil field.
It was in a similar spirit that the British attorney general Lord Goldsmith used his time visiting Moscow last month to offer legal advice to Russia on how better to prepare an extradition case against Chechen leader Akhmed Zakayev, to whom London has given asylum, and whom Russia wants on terrorism charges.
Just to be on the safe side, the final G8 communique has already been written - four days before the first diplomatic foot steps on the first bit of red carpet.
It is a safe assumption that this communique contains little beyond bland pronouncements on the need to fight poverty, unemployment and HIV/Aids.
But get a few drinks inside a diplomat and he will admit to a gloomier prognosis: Russia is entitled to roll back democracy and civil rights because it is flush with cash and paying its debts.
The analysis of Putin's Russia that most privately subscribe to was laid out this week by chess champion Garry Kasparov, grooming himself as the "great white hope" of Russia's tattered opposition.
He sees Russia as being controlled by a tiny group, dominated by the security services, who are making fortunes from oil and gas. "Stop pretending that the Kremlin shares the free world's interests," he told me. "It's in Putin's interest to keep the tension high. If oil prices are high that keeps his regime going."
Ironically, this is a picture Mr Putin might agree with: for the Kremlin, furious at seeing so many former Eastern block allies slide into the clutches of Nato and the EU, the priority is strength, not civic niceties.
And many Russians agree. Mr Putin has brought stability and opinion polls show that is the priority for voters.
It is this reality that will see Western leaders shrug and smile for the cameras - in the knowledge they can do little to influence the Kremlin on issues including democracy, Chechnya and human rights. But while the Western leaders will smile for the cameras, they will also frustrate Mr Putin's ambitions.
His chairmanship of the G8 was all about energy security, which, translated, means allowing Russia's state gas monopoly, Gazprom, to buy Western supply companies. But Europe got scared last January when Gazprom abruptly cut deliveries in Ukraine in mid-winter during a price dispute. US vice- president Dick Cheney has since accused Mr Putin of using gas as a political weapon.
And the European Commission, in an uncharacteristically bold move, told Mr Putin that there must be a quid pro quo. If Russia wants a slice of Europe's pipelines, then it must let Western companies buy chunks of Gazprom.
The Kremlin has said no, and the result is stalemate. In fact, worse than stalemate, because Russia is now anxiously watching EU governments scrambling to reinvest in coal, nuclear power and just about anything else that can provide an alternative to relying on Russian gas.
This is the one issue that Mr Putin wanted to resolve during this summit, and his failure will be keenly felt. Despite the smiles and photo opportunities in what remains one of Europe's most stunning cities, this weekend's summit will only serve to underline how far apart Russia and the West have now drifted.