Russia is planning a major shift towards a more pragmatic foreign policy to improve ties with the West and attract greater international investment, a report said Tuesday.

The new policy -- approved by President Dmitry Medvedev -- aims to make finding international capital to modernise the economy Russia's main diplomatic priority, the Russian edition of Newsweek said.

Entitled "The Programme for Effective Use of Foreign Policy in the Long Term Development of Russia", the doctrine says Russia must strengthen relations with the United States and the European Union to achieve its economic goals.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov wrote in the introduction that the best way to assure Russian interests in the modern world is to rapidly realise modernisation in Russia, a flagship project of Medvedev.

Russia needs to forge "modernising alliances" with Western Europe and the EU to attract foreign capital, Lavrov wrote in the doctrine, the entire text of which was posted on the Newsweek website.

Meanwhile, Russia will need to exploit the United States' technological potential and end restrictions on the transfer of American technology to Russia, he said.

"The greatest importance will be attached to the... strengthening of relations of mutual dependence with leading world and regional powers based on mutual penetration of economy and culture," Lavrov wrote.

Lavrov lauded the "transforming potential" of US President Barack Obama but warned that elements in the US foreign policy establishment were seeking to force him to a more confrontational stance.

He also identified Brazil, China, India, South Korea and Singapore as "dynamically developing states" with whom Russia needed a partnership to help its own technology sector.

Particular attention should be paid to the growing role of China and "the consequences for our global and regional interests", Lavrov said.

A foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment to AFP on the doctrine, which outlines a strategy for developing economic ties with every major state in the world.

"This means that foreign policy is no longer an obsession about the country's place in the world hierarchy but about attracting resources for its modernization," said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Moscow Carnegie Centre.

"There should be less pathos and more practicality to serve the well being of the country," he told AFP.

Newsweek said that doctrine would mark a major Russian shift away to a more pragmatic foreign policy after years of prickly relations with the European Union and United States.

"The economic crisis showed that we cannot develop Russia on our own," a foreign ministry source told the weekly. "We are going to have to rely on someone."

While the president traditionally takes charge of foreign policy, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his top foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov are expected to play a major role in the new doctrine, Newsweek said.

Russia's economy remains dangerously dependent on hydrocarbon exports and still far from realising its potential for attracting foreign investment.

The economy was hard hit by the crisis, rattling the Kremlin after a decade of strong growth under strongman leader Putin.

Medvedev has made economic modernization into a mantra, warning Russia risks hitting a "dead end" unless it embraces rapid reform and diversification.