The paper is devoted to the problems concerning the legal nature, normative regulation and the procedure for the implementation of the institute of preliminary constitutional review in the Russian Federation. Although the exercise of this type of constitutional control ensurs the prevention of the detected violations, it also carries certain risks associated with the limited time frame of its implementation, impossibility of taking into account interpretation of the contested norm in law enforcement, etc. The author demonstartes permissible forms of the use of preliminary control in the activity of the bodies of constitutional justice in Russia (when checking the constitutionality of international agreements and treaties of the Russian Federation, evaluating constitutional amendments, etc.). The author also investigates the practice of implementing the relevant powers. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation that stipulate the limits of the implementation of preliminary judicial constitutional review. The paper examines the issue of the powers of constitutional (charter) courts of constituent entities of the Russian Federation in the area under consideration.