West trying to destroy Russia - Naryshkin

MOSCOW. March 3 (Interfax) - The West is trying to destroy Russia by imposing an economic, information and humanitarian blockade, the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergei Naryshkin, said.

"The masks are off. The West is not just trying to surround Russia with a new Iron Curtain. We are talking about attempts to destroy our state, to 'cancel' it, as is now customary to say in the 'tolerant' liberal-fascist camp," Naryshkin said in a statement published on the SVR website.

"Having neither the capability nor spirit to do so in an open and honest military-political standoff, the United States and its allies have been shamefully at pains to impose an economic, informational and humanitarian 'blockade,'" he said.

"What is most disgusting is that this is being done under mendacious slogans about the need to defend Ukraine's sovereignty and European security," the statement said.