NIZHNY NOVGOROD, July 10./TASS/. Western opponents understand that Russia cannot be destroyed either by weapons or economically, which is why they have unleashed "a full-blown war of reason" against it, targeting the youth, Sergey Kiriyenko, first deputy chief of staff of the Presidential Administration, said on Monday.

"Those who are fighting against us understand perfectly well that, in fact, Russia cannot be brought down by arms; we cannot be defeated through the use of arms," Kiriyenko told the all-Russia youth forum Digoriya.

"The Russian economy, perhaps to the surprise and chagrin of many of our Western opponents, has shown that it cannot be brought down even with such unprecedented sanctions, it has proven to be much more resilient and stronger, and much more competitive," the Kremlin official said.

With this in view, those who "have set the task to destroy Russia, or at least to make it weak, compliant, to bring it to its knees, have the most fundamental tool left - to try to ruin it from the inside," he pointed out. "In fact, there is no other way to bring Russia down at all; so, they have launched a full-scale war of reason, a psychological war, whose target is the younger generation," Kiriyenko noted.