In fairness, I do think that this situation is somewhat different. As I noted above (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48812792), there are two main routes to an Informational RFC of this kind.

* Through the IETF

* Through the Independent Stream

The GOST documents went through the Independent Stream and therefore do not have IETF imprimateur. These documents are proposed for the IETF Stream and therefore require IETF Consensus to publish.

I know this is all super confusing. The basic problem is that the vast majority of RFCs come out of the IETF and so people often act as if all RFCs do. This is of course in part why people pursue Independent Stream publication rather than just publishing things on their own..