The following paper investigates the extent to which the regional programs of sustainable development in rural areas in Russia comply with the Federal program of rural development for years 2013-2020 (FCP URST). For this, we analyze 81 regional programs. The hypothesis of the research is that Russian legislative system provides the necessary juridical cornerstone for the processes of sustainable development in rural territories in Russia, in agricultural production, and improves the attractiveness of the rural life. In attempts to prove the hypothesis we found some inconsistencies in the legislative system: the regions spontaneously interpret the term “rural areas”, fail to pursue the improvement of statistical observation system in rural territories. In many regional projects the goals and objectives of the Federal program are not fully established, the target indicators are violated, and the list of actions mismatch the ones recommended at the Federal level. Thus, our analysis shows that regular changes in federal and regional laws do not improve the quality of rural life as much as they were expected. In order to improve the efficiency of the regional programs we recommend that priority goals should be chosen not by civil servants, but with rural administration and participation of local people. We suggest developing a federal template for rural laws in the sphere of sustainable development on the regional level. We also recommend to set the minimum goals and target indicators which are a “must do” in order to meet the federal criteria of program accomplishment. We recommend to define the criteria of sustainability (or opposite – variability), and estimate the level of accomplishment of sustainable rural development programs by this variable.