The scholarly examination of new Russian Paganism tends to follow one of two lines. Some researchers discover Paganism while studying right-wing movements in general. Therefore, they focus on the Russian Neopagans' political and xenophobic views by analyzing their leaders' writings. In addition, they study their political activity, including their enrollment in radical political parties and their violent activities toward “others.” Such researchers are naturally uninterested in those groups that do not fit the wider frame of “the right wing”.

Others regard Russian Neopagans as a new religious movement from a religious-studies perspective, or perhaps as a youth subculture from a sociological perspective. Therefore, they aspire to cover religious issues: beliefs, rituals, and practices. They are less interested in groups whose activities seem to stray too often into politics or radical ideology, and they may try to define away such groups from the family of religious Neopagans.

In this article I focus on the political attitudes and social aspects of the Russian Neopagans' activity. I also cover the Neopagans' participation in the political movements and radical violent activity, such as those of violent skinheads and terrorists.

The Neopagans themselves usually deny—or at least, downplay—chauvinist, racist, and Nazi attitudes among themselves. Nonetheless, in his most recent book, the well-known Neopagan leader Velimir (Nikolai Speranskii) recognized the existence of the right wing, where he includes Valerii Yemelyanov, volkhv (wizard) Dobroslav (Aleksei Dobrovolskii), Vladimir Istarkhov, and Igor Sinyavin, as well as the Union of the Slavic Communities of Vadim Kazakov and the Church of Nav' and Neopagan skinheads.