There are different subjects of federation in Russia: republics, krais, oblasts, one autonomous oblast and two or three federal cities.

Each of them has their own laws and elected legislatures. But, as you correctly mentioned, the head of each subject is now appointed rather than elected.

Nevertheless, this system definitely falls into federalism because, as I already said, all of them have their own laws and, more importantly, budgets. The difference between unitary and federative state is usually drawn here: there is a separate budget process in each or not.

Some of them also have different official languages and even different passport standards. For instance, the Tatarstan Passport has two pages more than the standard Russian one, with inscription in Tatar language.

In all, you should note that this centralization that you mentioned came as a response measure after some of the subjects became virtually independent, which put territorial integrity under danger. So if to count overall, many subjects of Russia have much more features of an independent state than, say, US states. They have their own culture, language, religion, predominant ethnic groups, etc.

As to the appointment of the heads, compare it with appointing the head of state of Monaco by France and head of state of Australia and Canada by the British monarch.