Are PhDs from former Warsaw-pact countries recognized in North America?
Yes, of course. Go into any American mathematics department's webpage and odds are that you will find an academic with a PhD from the USSR.
Edit: with regards to &quot;status&quot;, it really depends what do you mean by it. Do they have same legal status? Yes. Are they valued the same? Most likely not depending on who makes the evaluation. American public (and surprisingly good portion of academics) seem to value &quot;university rankings&quot; a lot more than other people do. Non-American schools seem to fair much worse on these metrics compared with the American schools. As an example, current times higher education world ranking ranks.

104th University of Arizona
105th University of Bonn
125th University of Göttingen
189th Lomonosov Moscow State University

Now, I have seen much stronger mathematicians with PhDs from the last three compared to the first. I personally would value higher either one of the last three than the first.
P.S: Indian IITs don't make it to first 300. However, they seem to have incredible students. Perhaps because they admit incredible ones. Even than why would, say Harvard, be any different.