MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/. There will be no Russia if the country does not have a Navy capable of ensuring its security, Nikolay Patrushev, presidential aide and head of the Maritime Board, said in an interview with a Vesti correspondent.

"I want to emphasize this point: if we do not have a Navy that is capable of ensuring security, there will be no Russia. Quite clearly. It means that we will be economically strangled. This is why we need a strong Navy," Patrushev said.

Besides the Navy, Russia needs a strong merchant fleet.

"I say it again, when we started cooperation with our alleged partners, then, of course, we expected that it would be an honest economic cooperation. They stopped it and want to strangle us economically. Sanctions are being imposed, a shadow fleet is being pinpointed - anything, just so that our trade is not carried out. After all, the main trade in the world does not go by land - everything goes by water, by seas, by oceans. We must have our own fleet," the presidential aide concluded.