Russia has prepared a classified document setting out actions it would take if Western nations impose further sanctions on Moscow over its involvement in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin's top economic aide said on Friday.
"I can say that strategy or no strategy, there is a tactic, it has been worked out, it is in the form of a document - a document that is closed, for obvious reasons," Andrei Belousov told state-run Rossiya-24 television.
This comes after Russian President Putin said he was upbeat on the prospects for resolving the crisis in Ukraine and that doing so would help improve relations with the United States.
"I'm an optimist. I am not losing faith that the situation in Ukraine will at some point become normal and we will find the inner strength to normalize relations (with the United States)," Putin told the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.
He said Russia did not want to isolate itself from the rest of the world and that it wanted to work with the United States on many projects.
On another note, he said Moscow's biggest concern over the crisis in Ukraine was that the former Soviet republic would join NATO.
"Tomorrow Ukraine may join NATO, while the day after tomorrow parts of the U.S. anti-missile system could be deployed there," he told an investment forum.
Russia has long been wary of the expansion of the military bloc into eastern Europe, and in particular former Soviet republics. Putin said last month Russia's decision to annexe Crimea from Ukraine was partly influenced by concerns over NATO enlargement.
Turning to punitive measures, Putin said Western sanctions imposed on Russia over Ukraine are having a real impact on domestic businesses.
He also noted that access to funding for many Russian companies has became limited due to the punitive measures, adding that the United States could be pressing sanctions against Russia to win competitive advantage over Europe.
President Vladimir Putin said earlier that sanctions imposed on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine would have a boomerang effect on the West.
Criticizing the United States, he said the vision of a "unipolar" world had failed and hailed European companies for taking a more "pragmatic" approach to Russia.
The European Union, heavily reliant on Russian gas supplies, has been more reluctant than Washington to impose tough sanctions on Russia.
Reiterating comments by other Russian leaders, Putin also told businessmen at a conference in the city of St Petersburg on Friday that there had been chaos since pro-Moscow President Vladimir Yanukovich was forced out of office in Ukraine in February.
The chaos, he said, had given way to civil war.
For his part, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said that Moscow would pull back "100 percent" of its forces deployed to regions near its border with Ukraine "within a few days".
Asked whether Russia would comply with Western calls for a withdrawal of its troops near the Ukraine frontier, Antonov told Reuters: "They will see it - 100 percent ... We will leave less than nothing behind."
Also on Friday, the chief of Russia's military general staff, General Valery Gerasimov, said that it will take about 20 days to move military equipment temporarily deployed near the border with Ukraine back to permanent bases.
A Defense Ministry source clarified that troops and equipment would be fully moved out of the border area in the course of a few days and that it would take 20 days to return the troops and equipment to their permanent bases.
Russia's top general said earlier that Moscow would take steps to respond to what he said was increased NATO activity near its border amid the crisis in Ukraine.
"The intensity, the operational and combat readiness of the (western military) alliance's troops is being increased near the Russian border. In these circumstances ... We have to take retaliatory measures," General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of general staff of the Russian armed forces, said.
In turn, a senior Russian minister said Moscow's strategic goal is the integration of the post-Soviet region and those who oppose this could not be considered partners.
"This is our strategic goal," First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov told the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, and he said he did not understand why the United States opposed those efforts.