Russia's 2020 constitutional reform was rapid and ambitious. The reform set not only new tasks for the legislator, but also posed a serious challenge for the science of constitutional law. Many well-known interpretations of constitutional principles require rethinking. This concerns largely issues of the federal structure and local self-government, which are still not a topic of public and expert discussions. At the same time, there is a need to determine the place of the amendments on the Russian state identity in the institution of the federal structure as well as to define the content of the principle of the unity of the public power system. This principle cannot be reduced to the hierarchical dependence of the state and local government bodies, because this approach contradicts the constitutional principles of federalism and the organizational independence of local self-government. The unity of the system of public authority does not exclude the independence of the subjects of the Russian Federation in de