WASHINGTON, March 13. /TASS/. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects that the Western sanctions over the situation in Ukraine will plunge Russia into a deep recession, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Sunday.

"The impact of the sanctions is quite severe for the Russian economy. We expect deep recession in Russia," she said in an interview with CBS. "I can say that no longer we think of Russian default as improbable event."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in order to protect people "who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, its goals were denazification and demilitarization of that country.

Following this step, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and several other countries announced sanctions against Russia individuals and legal entities.