The incorporation into the text of the Russian Constitution of the principle of the unity of the public power system served as an impetus for large-scale legislative reform. At the same time, the federal legislator did not limit himself to amendments to the basic acts on the authorities of the subjects of the Russian Federation and on local self-government but proposed two conceptual new acts. However, the question of whether the constitutional principle of the unity of the public power system provides a basis for the proposed legislative interpretations remains the focus of expert discussions. Based on the positions developed in the decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, as well as in the doctrine of constitutional and municipal law, the article proposes a systemic interpretation of the principle of the unity of public power in combination with the principle of independence of local self-government within the limits of its authority and the principle of organizational separation of local self-government from the bodies of state authority. The functional unity of state power and local self-government is not absolute. It does not imply total organizational subordination of one level of public power to another. At the same time, this means the development of effective forms of coordinating interaction between public law entities.