Since 2003, there has been a tendency to involve local governments in the public administration system. From year to year, more and more state powers were delegated to the municipal level with different levels of their provision in terms of finance, property, human resources, etc. As a result, the constitutional reform of 2020 created a situation in which, in Chapter 8 of the domestic normative legal act of the highest legal force, the concept of a unified system of public authority was formed, which directly contradicts its own art. 12 regarding the separation of local self-government from state power. In order to ensure the characterization of the state as a legal one, as stated in Article 1 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, this situation must be changed. In addition, the legislation adopted as a follow-up to the constitutional provisions also contains a number of contradictions that do not contribute to the formation of comprehensive state power and fix the lack of formation of local self-government as such. The article analyzes the contradictions of local self-government in Russia and identifies ways to eliminate them.