Political divisions of Russia

Russia is divided into several types and levels of subdivisions.

The federal districts are groupings of the federal subjects of Russia. Federal districts are not mentioned in the nation's constitution, do not have competences of their own, and do not manage regional affairs. They exist solely to monitor consistency between the federal and regional bodies of law, and ensure governmental control over the civil service, judiciary, and federal agencies operating in the regions. The federal district system was established on 13 May 2000. There are total eight federal districts.

Since 30 September 2022, the Russian Federation has consisted of eighty-nine federal subjects that are constituent members of the Federation. However, six of these federal subjects—the Republic of Crimea, the Donetsk People's Republic, the Kherson Oblast, the Lugansk People's Republic, the federal city of Sevastopol, and the Zaporozhye Oblast—are internationally recognized as part of Ukraine. All federal subjects are of equal federal rights in the sense that they have equal representation—two delegates each—in the Federation Council (upper house of the Federal Assembly). They do, however, differ in the degree of autonomy they enjoy.

De jure, excluding the occupied Ukrainian territories, there are 6 types of federal subjects—21 republics, 9 krais, 46 oblasts, 2 federal cities, 1 autonomous oblast, and 4 autonomous okrugs.

Autonomous okrugs are the only ones that have an unusual status of being federal subjects in their own right, yet at the same time they are considered to be administrative divisions of other federal subjects (with the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug being the only exception).

On 18 March 2014, as a part of the annexation of Crimea and following the establishment of the Republic of Crimea (an independent entity that was recognized only by Russia), a treaty was signed between Russia and the Republic of Crimea incorporating the Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol as constituent members of the Russian Federation. According to the Treaty, the Republic of Crimea is accepted as a federal subject with the status of a republic while the City of Sevastopol has received federal city status. Neither the Republic of Crimea nor the city of Sevastopol are politically recognized as parts of Russia by most countries.

Similarly, Russia also annexed four Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporozhzhia on 30 September 2022 after internationally-unrecognized referendums held days prior, during the invasion of Ukraine that began in late February, which were organized by Russian occupation authorities in territories where hostilities were ongoing and much of the population had fled. It occurred seven months after the start of the invasion and less than a month after the start of the Ukrainian Kharkiv counteroffensive. The signing ceremony was held in the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow in the presence of occupation authority heads Leonid Pasechnik, Denis Pushilin, Yevgeny Balitsky, and Vladimir Saldo, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Like Crimea, none of the four occupied regions are internationally recognized as part of Russia.

a. ^{^} The largest city is also listed when it is different from the capital/administrative centre.