I don't think there's much of a "Russian factor" with Yakupov. Mostly teams are hesitant to draft Russians because they're not sure if/when they'll come over, and if a guy doesn't come over it's a wasted pick. Yakupov came to play in the CHL at 16, I doubt this will be much of a concern, unless people think he has a Radulov type attitude (I haven't heard anything like that personally, though he does tend to go way over the top with his goal celebrations, like Radulov). Really, the only recent drafts that have had Russian prospects who were talented enough to get serious consideration at 1st overall were the 2004 and 2001 drafts, and in those drafts the Russsian factor didn't matter - Ovy and Malkin went 1st and 2nd in 2004, Kovalchuk went 1st in 2001.
With that being, Yakupov is certainly no lock to go 1st overall in 2012, very few players are anything close to being a lock 1.5 years before the draft, so much can happen in that time with respect to player development, injuries, etc. He is the early favourite though.
All that said, I don't see why a Russian won't get picked 1st overall again. Another Kovalchuk, Malkin or Ovechkin will come along and be too good to pass up. But those guys were huge framed guys, which is one thing that makes it tough to go 1st overall. Guys Yakupov's size don't go 1st overall very often, and they really need to outproduce their peers by a fair margin (i.e. Crosby, Kane).
I don't know, if you look at the last 6 drafts, a forward has gone 1st overall in 5 of them, and all 5 forwards were between 5'10" and 6'1", and none of them particularly built on draft day:
2010 - Taylor Hall - 6'1"
2009 - John Tavares - 6'0"
2008 - Steven Stamkos - 6'1"
2007 - Patrick Kane - 5'10"
2006 - Erik Johnson - 6'4" (but a dman)
2005 - Sidney Crosby - 5'11"
In the "new NHL" I'd say size is less important than it used to be, you always want supporting forwards who are big to get the puck out of the corners or stand in front of the net, but I'd say most of the young offensive stars in the league now are small to average sized, in that 5'10" to 6'1" range. Yakupov was 5'10" as a 16 year old, wouldn't shock me to see him around 5'11" on draft day, and he seems pretty strong. If, on draft day, he seems like the most offensively talented player in the draft, seems committed to playing in the NHL, and doesn't seem like a huge d-bag, then he'll go 1st overall.