The Russian economy's dependence on natural resources exports and external markets poses a "strategic risk" to the security of the country, a new Kremlin security blueprint said Wednesday.
The document, approved by President Dmitry Medvedev and top security officials, lists the structural flaws of the economy as a risk to national security along with more familiar factors such as the U.S. and NATO.
"The preservation of a natural resources export model of development for the national economy" is among the "main strategic risks and threats to national security in the long term in the economic sphere," it said.
Russia remains hugely dependent on export-orientated hydrocarbon and metals industries after the authorities failed to diversify the economy and encourage medium-sized business after the collapse of Communism.
The economy has been battered by the global crisis as world commodities prices plummeted. It contracted by an alarming 9.5% in the first quarter.
The security blueprint also listed as threats "the reduction of competitiveness and the high level of dependency on external markets of the economy's important sectors."
The document, published on the Kremlin Web site, ambitiously set the goal of Russia in the medium term becoming one of the world's top five economies measured by GDP volume.
One of the masterminds of the report, the secretary of the state security council, Nikolai Patrushev, acknowledged in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper that the emphasis on economic welfare was greater than before.
"Ensuring worthy living conditions in Russia is seen as just as much a priority in ensuring national security as the traditional priorities of defense capability and the security of the state," he said.
The document also listed the loss of control over national resources, corruption and criminality and the uneven development of regions in this vast country as additional potential problems.