Government programs as a means of ensuring the sustainable development of the Russian state

The article examines the concept and essence of government programs from the perspective of their importance for the development of the state, taking into account the realities of the Russian state and society. This topic is relevant due to the need to support various sectors and spheres of society and the state with the resources of the budgetary system, the availability of a wide range of socially significant issues that can best be addressed through the tools of government programs and targeted budget planning. The authors set out the tasks of analyzing the properties of the legal regime of state programs from the perspective of their relationship with the key characteristics of the state and substantiating the understanding of state programs as a legal means of ensuring the sustainable development of the state.Purpose. The author of the article aims to highlight the properties of state programs that allow them to be classified as special (institutional) legal means of ensuring the sustainable development of the Russian state.The methodological basis of the article consists of general scientific (dialectics, analysis and synthesis, abstraction and concretization) and private scientific research methods (formal legal, comparative legal, concrete sociological, technical-legal, systemic-structural, historical-legal, logical, etc.).Content. The role of state programs for the realization of the functions of the state, public administration, and the budgetary method of running a state economy is shown. State programs and the activities they imply (managerial, financial, and others) are considered to be a necessary legal means of ensuring the organization of the state in modern conditions, which belongs to the category of political and legal territorial entities that implement public interests in the context of multidisciplinary legal regulation.Conclusions. The role of state programs as an essential means of ensuring the sustainable development of the Russian state is explained by the fact that program-targeted planning takes into account the state's policy towards key areas of the state and society, the systematic impact of planning on social relations, taking into account the needs of the population and the realities of the state, and the expanded potential for using public finances. State programs allow for the updated needs of interaction between state and public institutions, as well as between the state and civil society, to be taken into account in regulatory and financial planning activities.