Radical extremists continued to operate openly in more than half of Russia’s 89 regions. While most of these organizations are small and their political influence marginal, there is also little social or governmental opposition to them. There are at least ten ultranationalist groups in Russia with memberships between 100 and 5,000 members each.

The year 2000 witnessed increasing cooperation between Russian extremists and their ideological counterparts abroad. The most notorious example of such cooperation was that of David Duke.

These groups range from far-left neo-Bolsheviks to Russian Orthodox monarchists to overtly neo-Nazi types such as Russian National Unity, or RNE.

RNE, one of the largest ultranationalist groups, split last year, giving rise to at least two new groups whose level of influence and activity has yet to be seen. Other groups that functioned in 2000 included the National-Bolshevik Party, Russian Action, the National Front, Russian All-People Union, Christian Revival Union, Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods, National Republican Party, People's National Party, various neo-Nazi skinhead groups and some others.

While radical nationalists and anti-Semites continue to operate at the margins of the Russian political scene, some of them have showed interest in participating in various elections to win broader support for their political platforms. No hard-line ultranationalist group had any political representation as of 2000, and most of them focused on enlisting new members, mostly youths from underprivileged groups of society.

RNE was barred from running for parliament (under a different name) and its leader Alexander Barkashov was not allowed to run for president. In both cases, authorities cited purely technical breaches when preventing these extreme nationalists and anti-Semites from seeking national offices.

The main activity of nationalist organizations is the publication of periodicals. At least 37 newspapers and magazines of ultranationalist bent published anti-Semitic materials in 2000, ranging in circulation from a few thousand to 100,000. (It should be noted that the print-run of most of these periodicals tends to be disproportionately higher than the membership of the organization that publishes that particular weekly or monthly.)

In some cases, the groups such as RNE not only enjoyed official recognition (RNE is officially registered as a public organization in more than 30 Russian regions) but were also given semi-official police powers or were officially involved in providing paramilitary training of the young men preparing for military service which is obligatory for all Russian men.

The year 2000 witnessed increasing cooperation between Russian extremists and their ideological counterparts abroad. The most notorious example of such cooperation was that of David Duke, the U.S. white supremacist, who visited Russia twice during the year. Duke’s most recent anti-Semitic tract was prepared exclusively for the Russian market.

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