How to handle drag/drop without violating MVVM principals?

There are libraries for this such as gong and similar snippets on various blog articles.

However, you shouldn't get too hung up on having absolutely no code-behind. For example, this is still MVVM in my book:

void ButtonClicked(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    ((MyViewModel) this.DataContext).DoSomething();
}

A command binding might be a better choice, but the logic is definitely in the viewmodel. With something like Drag and Drop, it's more variable where you want to draw the line. You can have code-behind interpret the Drag Args and call methods on the viewmodel when appropriate.

Here is some code I wrote that allows you to drag and drop files onto a control without violating MVVM. It could easily be modified to pass the actual object instead of a file.

/// <summary>
/// IFileDragDropTarget Interface
/// </summary>
public interface IFileDragDropTarget
{
    void OnFileDrop(string[] filepaths);
}

/// <summary>
/// FileDragDropHelper
/// </summary>
public class FileDragDropHelper
{
    public static bool GetIsFileDragDropEnabled(DependencyObject obj)
    {
        return (bool)obj.GetValue(IsFileDragDropEnabledProperty);
    }

    public static void SetIsFileDragDropEnabled(DependencyObject obj, bool value)
    {
        obj.SetValue(IsFileDragDropEnabledProperty, value);
    }

    public static bool GetFileDragDropTarget(DependencyObject obj)
    {
        return (bool)obj.GetValue(FileDragDropTargetProperty);
    }

    public static void SetFileDragDropTarget(DependencyObject obj, bool value)
    {
        obj.SetValue(FileDragDropTargetProperty, value);
    }

    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsFileDragDropEnabledProperty =
            DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("IsFileDragDropEnabled", typeof(bool), typeof(FileDragDropHelper), new PropertyMetadata(OnFileDragDropEnabled));

    public static readonly DependencyProperty FileDragDropTargetProperty =
            DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("FileDragDropTarget", typeof(object), typeof(FileDragDropHelper), null);

    private static void OnFileDragDropEnabled(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        if (e.NewValue == e.OldValue) return;
        var control = d as Control;
        if (control != null) control.Drop += OnDrop;
    }

    private static void OnDrop(object _sender, DragEventArgs _dragEventArgs)
    {
        DependencyObject d = _sender as DependencyObject;
        if (d == null) return;
        Object target = d.GetValue(FileDragDropTargetProperty);
        IFileDragDropTarget fileTarget = target as IFileDragDropTarget;
        if (fileTarget != null)
        {
            if (_dragEventArgs.Data.GetDataPresent(DataFormats.FileDrop))
            {
                fileTarget.OnFileDrop((string[])_dragEventArgs.Data.GetData(DataFormats.FileDrop));
            }
        }
        else
        {
            throw new Exception("FileDragDropTarget object must be of type IFileDragDropTarget");
        }
    }
}

Usage:

<ScrollViewer AllowDrop="True" Background="Transparent" utility:FileDragDropHelper.IsFileDragDropEnabled="True" utility:FileDragDropHelper.FileDragDropTarget="{Binding}"/>

Ensure the DataContext inherits from IFileDragDropTarget and implements the OnFileDrop.

public class MyDataContext : ViewModelBase, IFileDragDropTarget
{
    public void OnFileDrop(string[] filepaths)
    {
        //handle file drop in data context
    }
}