The author analyses particularly important, topical and at the same time dramatically “tangled” national question in Russia. It is the politically determinative correlation of federal and national dispositions in its state system that constitutes the key object of the author’s attention. Their combination, in the author’s opinion, to a large extent predetermines specific character of the Russian federalism. The author considers the broad problematic field of mutual relations between the Russians and the non-Russian nations in Russia, as well as the variety of concrete connotation of “nationalism” in Russia’s politics. He accentuates the threat of accumulation of misbalances in affairs of the state regulation of the federal and of the inter-national relations. The article covers also the idea of “new federalism” able to open the way for removal of irregularities in the relations between the Russian nation and the other nations of the Russian Federation.