Russia's presidential office has admitted that tightening Western sanctions over the Ukraine invasion are leaving their mark.

"The economic reality has changed significantly," spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Monday.

“These are heavy sanctions, they are problematic.

But Russia has the potential to compensate for the damage.” Russia has long had plans in the drawer to be able to respond to all possible sanctions.

"There are response plans, they have been developed and will be implemented as soon as problems arise," said Peskow.

After the European Union, the US also put its severe sanctions against Russia's central bank into effect on Monday.

US citizens and institutions are banned from transactions with the central bank, and the central bank can no longer conduct transactions in US dollars worldwide, a senior White House official said.

Coupled with allied sanctions, most of Russia's foreign exchange reserves, worth around $630 billion, are now effectively blocked and cannot be used by Russia to absorb the economic fallout from the war, he said.

Sanctions also against sovereign wealth funds

The US official said sanctions would also be imposed on the Russian sovereign wealth fund and the Treasury Department.

"Our strategy, simply put, is to keep the Russian economy going backwards - as long as President (Vladimir) Putin decides to press ahead with the invasion of Ukraine," he said.

The sanctions against the central bank are the most important punitive measures taken by the US government.

Exceptions are made only for certain transactions related to the oil and gas market, the official stressed.

"No state is immune to sanctions," he emphasized.

Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin has called a crisis meeting to discuss the economic situation.

Central Bank President Elvira Nabiullina, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and the CEO of the major bank Sberbank, German Gref, are to take part.

The central bank has already raised its key interest rate from 9.5 to 20.0 percent in order to slow down the drastic decline in the national currency, the rouble.

"We had no reason to doubt the effectiveness and reliability of our central bank," said Kremlin spokesman Peskov.

"Even now there is no reason to doubt it."

In particular, the freezing of the foreign exchange reserves of the Russian central bank by western countries had an effect.

Peskov said the sanctions imposed on President Putin himself were pointless.

Putin is "pretty indifferent," said his spokesman.

"The sanctions contain absurd claims about some assets."