MOSCOW, May 17 (TASS) - Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that the Western countries, including the United States, which is conducting a hybrid war against Russia, have become hostile states. He was speaking at the educational marathon conference New Horizons organized by the Russian Znanie (Knowledge) society.

"The hybrid war is what is happening right now, what we have encountered," he stated. "It is not confined to the US and British advisers, who are telling the armed Ukrainian nationalists what to do and who are providing them with intelligence data and so on and so forth. No. It’s a diplomatic war and political war. There are attempts to isolate us in the world. It’s economic war."

"It is true that we keep referring to them mildly as unfriendly states, but I should say that they are hostile states, because what they are doing is war," Peskov said.