EU is a political entity (recent), Europe a geographical entity (ancient). There is an overlap of people who live within both, but that's not the case with Russia.
I simply understood the EU label on that TechCrunch page to refer to Europe, not the political entity. I don't think that's an unreasonable way to read it in a journalistic context. There is no other readily available shorthand for referring to the continent, particularly since EUR refers to the currency.
But it's no the same as the European Union which is the economic and political union. The correct label would be "Europe".