Political divisions 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.

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).

[9] Neither the Republic of Crimea nor the city of Sevastopol are politically recognized as parts of Russia by most countries.

[10] 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.

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.

License plate production was suspended due to the Chechen Wars, causing numerous issues, which in turn forced the region to use a new code.

Prior to the adoption of the 1993 Constitution of Russia, the administrative-territorial structure of Russia was regulated by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of 17 August 1982 "On the Procedures of Dealing with the Matters of the Administrative-Territorial Structure of the RSFSR".

While the implementation details may be considerably different, in general, however, the following types of high-level administrative divisions are recognized: Autonomous okrugs and okrugs are intermediary units of administrative divisions, which include some of the federal subject's districts and cities/towns/urban-type settlements of federal subject significance.