the problem is that her name (in Russian) changed when she married me.
so her existing passport has her maiden name and needs to be replaced.
it would be nice if the russian passport authority simply translated her name from Russian to english based on how my name is spelled in English. But of course they will not do that... they will transliterate the name based on their own system, so it will be different. (My family name is LEWIN, and her name changed into a russian version of that, transliterated back into english we expect it to look like LIYUIN).

so in any case, having her previous passport will not help us...