If I remember my figure skating history right

, think the bit about assuming that Eastern European nations favor Russian skaters goes back to the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989. All of a sudden there were all these "new" countries active in figure skating. But the people most influential in figure skating circles -- coaches, federation officials, etc.-- were in fact all on loan from Russia.
It wasn't that people in Ukraine love Russia, but rather that many of the individuals who ran the Ukrainian Figure Skating Association
were Russians who the year before had been part of the Soviet figure skating association. (Victor Petrenko won the 1992 Olympic gold medal representing the "United Team" of Russia and former soviet states. By 1994, Oksana Baiul won the Olympic gold medal representing Ukraine.)
Anyway, the complaint back then was that all of a sudden, Russia, instead of having one judge on every panel, now had 3 or 4 or 5.
Well, time marches on. That was then, this is now. Those skating federations have had 30 years to develop their own skating programs to serve their own national aspirations and goals. Nowadays I think that the only National Skating Federations that have lingering close ties to Russia are Belarus and possibly Israel.