The Federal Reserve will need to raise interest rates several times after the first rate hike in March to combat high inflation, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said on Thursday.

"Given where inflation is, we have to have a series of movements," Mester said during a virtual event organized by the Lyons Companies and the University of Delaware.

Mester said the events in Russia and Ukraine do not change the Fed's plans to begin removing accommodation by raising rates starting in March and shrinking the central bank's bond holdings later this year. However, the global developments could affect the pace of future rate increases.