(Updates prices, adds details)
    * Palladium, platinum on track for 3rd monthly gain
    * Gold eyes best month since May 2021
    * Silver up about 8% so far in Feb 
    * Goldman sees commodities rally on Russia-Ukraine crisis

    By Asha Sistla
    Feb 28 (Reuters) - Palladium jumped over 7% on Monday as
fresh Western sanctions on Russia raised supply concerns for the
auto-catalyst, while gold rose about 2% after President Vladimir
Putin put the country's nuclear deterrent on high alert.
    Palladium        gained 4.9% to $2,483.19 by 0913 GMT,
having scaled a session high of $2,551.50, and was set for a
third consecutive monthly rise.
    The United States and its allies on Saturday moved to block
certain Russian banks' access to the SWIFT international payment
system, which traders and analysts said could disrupt Russian
exports of all commodities from oil and metals to grains.
                          
    "There's just real concern here that shipping channels are
just going to get disrupted because of this Ukraine situation,"
said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management.
    "It's not necessarily the short-run spike that really weighs
negatively but more of the how long this is going to last."
    Russia's Nornickel           is the world's largest supplier
of palladium, used by automakers for catalytic converters.
            
    Spot gold        rose 0.6% to $1,898.83 per ounce, after
gaining as much as 2.2% earlier in the session. U.S. gold
futures        advanced 0.7% to $1,900.80.
    Gold has risen about 6% so far this month in what would be
its best monthly gain since May 2021, after prices soared to an
18-month high of $1,973.96 last week.
    "Gold is bid on the increasingly strident outpourings from
Moscow and concerns that Russian interference won't be confined
to Ukraine," said Nicholas Frappell, a global general manager at
ABC Bullion.
    Gold is often used as a means of preserving wealth during
times of financial and political uncertainty.
    Goldman sees a commodities rally on the Russia-Ukraine
crisis, which the Wall Street bank said reinforces their
conviction in higher gold prices in the next few months.
            
    Spot silver        rose 0.5% to $24.30 per ounce and
platinum        was up 0.6% to $1,060.18, with both poised for
monthly gains. 

 (Reporting by Asha Sistla in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by
Swati Verma, Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Krishna Chandra
Eluri)