~First, this serves Kiev’s long term purpose (among others?), in that Ukraine’s old (and uncomfortable) political balance will be shifted to a definitive majority pro-West sentiment and voting pattern.~
It might be the plan but East of Ukraine is too populous. Donetsk alone is almost twice the size of Denver.
You won’t depopulate a place as heavily ever unless you are willing to displace a dozen million people, killing a million in process.
~Second, there must be “powers” in Russia that would welcome a non-Muslim influx of (most likely) cheap labor.~
Yep, they are a gift for a Russian economy and I would pick an East European over Muslim immigrant any day. On the other hand, if their influx would be really significant it would hurt a blue collar lifestyles much. A hardworking welder can make over $500 a week in Russia and taxi drivers are making over $50,000 a year in Russia. In Ukraine a thousand dollars is a fortune, you must work for a foreign company or be in an organized crime to have as much in a month. On the other hand, most blue collar jobs are already taken by immigrants anyway.
Kiev doesn’t have to move out many millions of Pro-Russians. That’s my point. If Kiev can keep the country (or at least 95% of it) “intact”, and if only a million pro-Russian voters leave, then as a whole the country is going to (at least for the next few elections) politically swing pro-West, instead of the (recent past prior to 2014 at least in national elections) almost even split. There also seem to be a lot of people who don’t much like any of the current pols, and distrust the “West” too, but they feel even more strongly stabbed in the back by Russia.
That last shows up in the 2014 elections: Even allowing for part of the country not voting, the (essentially) pro West candidates as a group won very decisively, and still would have won if every voter in the areas that did not vote had voted for pro-Russian candidates. Knock a million pro-Russian voters off the rolls because they left, and the margin is cemented for quite a while.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_presidential_election,_2014
Note that I’m not saying Kiev is “wrong” — it may be the only way to end up with a manageable country.