The paper presents an analysis of Russian federal laws and state programs with a focus on the stated principles and objectives of language policy. Key questions posed in the paper include the following ones: How are the goals and objectives of the language policy formulated, and how implementable are they, taking into account the formulations used? To what extent the goals, objectives and activities declared meet the needs of socio-economic development of the country and the welfare of its citizens? It should be noted that texts of normative legal acts of the Russian Federation, which determine the language policy and establish the ways of its implementation, only indirectly refer to the ultimate goal of language policy (that is the welfare of citizens and of the society as a whole, the full realization of human potential). The choice of wording in the documents, which are fundamental for the Russian language policy, implies that both in the mass consciousness and in the political discourse some very mythologized and simplified ideas about the goals and objectives of language policy are tenacious and popular. The formulation of the goals and objectives of language policy in normative legal acts of the Russian Federation, the choice of ways to implement these goals and objectives in the government programs do not allow to say that the potential of language policy as the tool of social and economic development of the country, ensuring social and economic interests of its citizens, is fully realized by the participants of the norm-setting process.