But imports account for only 7% of GDP, and a deep recession is under way, so the impact on prices of devaluation ought to be limited.
These would form a proto-currency that would trade at a discount to the remaining euros in circulation a shadow price of the devaluation to come.
Despite the falling oil price, sharp devaluation of the rouble and western economic sanctions, Putin continues, undeterred, to spend heavily on Russia's military and its nuclear weapons arsenal.
The risk now is that inflation and a rising current-account deficit will trigger a rush to buy dollars and a downward spiral of devaluation and price rises like the one that scarred the country in the 1970s and '80s.
"Things would have been bad enough without a confluence of factors, from the rising price of oil to a devaluation of the currency that have put the squeeze on us".
Arminio Fraga, a former hedge-fund manager who is Brazil's new central-bank boss, warned a Senate committee last week that it would have to be "restrictive", so as to stop the one-off effect of devaluation on prices turning into inflation.
So far the pass-through of devaluation to domestic prices has been low, but the history of price-setting in Brazil suggests that this might suddenly change if the currency weakens further, says Monica Baumgarten de Bolle, an economist at Rio de Janeiro's Catholic University.
In Brazil one immediate effect of devaluation was higher prices, which are now stabilising.
It cites new advice from the IMF that Russia, currently flush with money thanks to the high price of oil and a post-devaluation boomlet, can afford to pay.
I do not mean that in the aftermath of the rupiah's massive devaluation the domestic price of a commodity like gasoline should not be brought in line with world prices.
