MOSCOW, July 17. /ITAR-TASS/. The West’s sanctions against Russia will not help Ukraine in any way, Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said.

“Unfortunately, these sanctions won’t help Ukraine,” Medvedev said at a government session on Thursday.

He added that sanctions cannot cause irreparable damage to the economy and bring anyone to knees.

“Any sanctions have an evil purpose. They don’t help either the economy or people. They never lead to progress,” Medvedev said at a government session on Thursday.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned new sanctions will put Russian relations with the West back to the 1980s, and Russia will have "to put more emphasis on strengthening defence and security".

"The so-called sectoral sanctions or the US sanctions against Russian companies operating in the military industrial complex and energy and some banks, unfortunately, will fuel further growth of anti-American and anti-European sentiment, it is absolutely obvious," he told the government.

The Russian society will continue consolidating against the countries and people that "are trying to restrain our country and act against its people's interests".

"We'll thus go back to the 80s in terms of relations with the countries than introduce such sanctions. This is sad. If this our partners' goal, it will be soon achieved," Medvedev said.

Russia had to revise economic development models, he added, start import substitution, step up use of internal growth sources, including financial resources, which “has some benefits”, Medvedev believes. However, pressure on Russia would certainly have some impact on the Russian budget policy and its priorities, the Prime Minister added.

“Social liabilities are unconditional, they will all be implemented, for this we have enough money,” he said. “But we’ll also have to put a greater emphasis on defense and security spending” and “we know how to do this”. The meeting on this issue will take place later on Thursday.

“Sanctions against Russia, Russian citizens and Russian companies are illegal because they aren’t based on the UN decisions,” Medvedev said.