MOSCOW, April 8 (EFE)- Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the Security Council of Russia, warned on Friday that “illegal” sanctions against Russia could be interpreted as an act of international aggression, and Moscow’s “individual and collective defense”

“Under certain circumstances, illegal sanctions may qualify as an international act of aggression by some countries or their alliances,” Medvedev said on his Telegram channel.

This would have been the case, the politician, who served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012, added, if the sanctions sought above all to destroy economic independence and state sovereignty and threaten the “existence of the state”.

The recently adopted restrictions against Russia are illegal and part of a “hybrid war”, he denounced, and represent “a flagrant violation of the rights of the Russian Federation”.

“In short, as our opponents say, this is a declaration of economic war. In this case, the attacked state, namely Russia, has the right to individual and collective defense within the scope of national legislation and international rights,” he said.

Medvedev warned, “No one should doubt that Russia will exercise this right as it sees fit, on the borders.”

He insisted that sanctions adopted outside of UN Article 41 were in fact “reprisals” unrecognized in international law.

The former Russian president predicted that the sanctions, “unprecedented in their size and cynicism”, would cause “above all the collapse of all international institutions, including the UN”.

He stressed that his aim was to “deeply weaken the (Russian) state and, accordingly, cause discontent in the authorities in order to be overthrown”.

“The result of this repression is often the opposite: civil society is united around power and the existing political regime is strengthened,” he commented.

He warned that the Russians would focus their “negative emotions” on countries that imposed sanctions, which they would view as “enemies of Russia”.

“Illegal sanctions, like everything else in this world, are temporary and will end at some point. Their consequences will have very serious consequences for the destruction of the international order and the world economy and the lives of some countries.”

USSo Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin estimates that more than 6,000 sanctions have been imposed on his country, which is in its most complex situation since the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991.