MOSCOW, April 7. /TASS/. Sanctions on Russia were meticulously organized, but its initiators failed to destroy the country's economy, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Thursday.

He noted that, despite the pandemic, when external pressure on Russia did not subside for a single day, but the latest sanctions are unparalleled in scope. "The number of restrictions imposed on any other country exceeds those ever imposed on any other country," Mishustin said. "But the main thing is that sanctions are directed against all our citizens," he said and added that the goal was to create panic.

Such restrictions, according to Mishustin, were not used even during the darkest years of the Cold War. "Their goal is to set us back years, if not decades, to block us off from the rest of the world, to force Russia to forsake potential economic and social projects, and to lower our people's standard of living," Mishustin said. He added that by introducing restrictions, everything is being done to increase inflation, create a shortage of consumer goods and, ultimately, social tension, and discontent.

"All this was carefully planned. The authors of this strategy expected that the sanctions storm would destroy our economy in a few days. Their scenario did not come true," Mishustin stressed.

According to Mishustin, the Russian financial system was the first to take the hit of the sanctions. "They [unfriendly countries] actually robbed the country by freezing assets," he said. Mishustin sais he believes that hardly any other state, except Russia, could cope with the current sanctions pressure.

He noted that Russia’s financial system has withstood the onslaught of sanctions, payments within the country are uninterrupted, and the ruble exchange rate is stabilizing. "The stock market and the ruble exchange rate are stabilizing,"the Prime Minister said.