Annotation

The past year 2025 was marked by the beginning of a new municipal reform, which reviews the essential provisions of its predecessor, launched twenty years earlier, which makes it possible to qualify the current changes as a counter-reform. The experience of reform teaches that the success or failure of transformations initiated by the supreme power depends crucially on their perception by the main participants in the relations arising from the changes being carried out. The perception of the reform is the most important indicator of the adequacy of its concept to the real problem situation on the ground, its compliance with the interests and expectations of the actors of municipal development, as well as their level of trust in the federal government. How exactly her new initiative is perceived in the article is clarified through an analysis of the publicly expressed attitude towards reform of parliamentary parties, regional and local authorities, the expert community and, most importantly, the source of all power – the population, which is directly "on its own" in their daily lives, unlike other participants involved in reform professionally ("ex officio"), will he feel whether the changes will be beneficial or harmful? The subject of consideration is the most controversial components of the reform, some of which have undergone changes "under fire from critics".