According to the 2004 reference work Varanoid Lizards of the World by Eric R. Pianka, Dennis King and Ruth Allen King, Levshakova's classification of V. darevskii is sensible and it would not be surprising if V. griseus were a descendant of V. darevskii, although no phylogenetic studies have yet taken V. darevskii into account and confirmed it. A 2016 analysis recovered V. darevskii as belonging to the subgenus Polydaedalus, which includes modern species such as the Nile monitor (V. niloticus), rock monitor (V. albigularis) and savannah monitor (V. exanthematicus). If this classification is correct, V. darevskii would be the first known occurrence of Polydaedalus in western Asia.Conrad, Jack L.; Montanari, Shaena; Ast, Jennifer C.; Wasserman, Danielle S.; Norell, Mark (2016). "Fragmentary (and Complete) Fossils Help Reconstruct Monitor Lizard (Squamata, Varaniformes) Biology and Evolution". Society of Vertebrate Paleontology October 2016: Abstracts of Papers 76th Annual Meeting
