MOSCOW: Russian inflation quickened to the fastest in more than five years after the country’s worst currency crisis since 1998 stoked price growth.

Consumer prices rose 11.4 percent in December from a year earlier, compared with 9.1 percent in November, the Federal Statistics Service in Moscow said Wednesday in an e-mailed statement, citing preliminary data. That exceeded the median estimate of 14 economists in a Bloomberg survey for 11.2 percent. Prices jumped 2.6 percent from the previous month.

Economic challenges are mounting for President Vladimir Putin, whose annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March prompted US and European sanctions before a plunge in oil prices sent the ruble into a tailspin. The inflation spike is roiling consumer demand as retailers including Apple, Renault and McDonald’s have been raising prices to offset the drop in the value of their sales in rubles.

“People’s purchasing power will slide further, monetary policy will become tighter and recession deeper in 2015,” Vladimir Miklashevsky, a strategist at Danske Bank in Helsinki, said by e-mail before the data release. “We expect inflation to peak at 15 percent during the first quarter.”

Russia’s currency lost 44 percent this year, the second- most in the world after Ukraine’s hryvnia, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Russia is sinking into stagflation as a recession looms and price growth soars. The economy of the world’s largest energy exporter may contract about 4 percent in 2015 if oil prices stay at $60 a barrel, according to Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.

The government is considering a freeze on some food prices and may use its stockpiles of buckwheat, sugar, meat and grains to help meet demand, Andrei Tsiganov, a deputy head of the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, said last week in Moscow.