yes exactly its related to culture and ukrainians, belarusians and russians are part of European Culture and always been same as other slavic countries.
When Europeans say EU we mean and always meant WHOLE EUROPE we don't care if somebody is from the Union or not because with your logic swiss are not from EU LOL.
It's even funnier for me as a polish slav to be not allowed to call my eastern boys EU XD

Really for somebody EU stands for the Union? LMAO I guess not for Europeans... maybe for dumb guys outside EU that google "EU" and see information about the Union.

UK is not part of Union nowadays yet their players play in EU qualifiers.

When Europeans say EU we mean WHOLE EUROPE we don't care about politics.

Ye They have most their territory in Asia BUT it doesn't change that Russia is still an European Country with European Culture.
Some dummies with NA education could say It's CIS but CIS is political creation based on trade regulations like European Union or your North American NAFTA

Spreaking of NAFTA if culture clearly doesn't matter and geography only does then where is your North American buddy Mexico KEKW

Either way I'm happy to be Slav so I can type:

SLAVS>NA