 Stepanova/Bukin edged out Ilinykh/Zhiganshin for the bronze medal at the Russian Championships in late December in Ekaterinburg and finished as the third Russian team, in fifth place, in January 2016 at the European Championships in Bratislava.Stepanova/Bukin were assigned to the 2016 World Championships in Boston after Ekaterina Bobrova / Dmitri Soloviev withdrew due to a positive doping sample.They finished eleventh in the competition after placing eleventh in both the short and free dance.