A book that some believe influences Russia's strategy is "Osnovy geopolitiki: Geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii" (Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geo-political Future of Russia) by Alexander Dugin. It describes the path to an Eurasian Empire that says about Ukraine "with the exception of its three westernmost regions—Volhynia, Galicia, and Transcarpathia—Ukraine, like Belarus, constitutes an integral part of Russia-Eurasia". [1]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics [1] http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/807...