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Today's paper. Last Updated: 02/22/2012

10/27/1992

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Don't Worry? Mr. Filatov, You're Joking

""It means the start of a new dictator-ship"". This is what one Russian had to say of the paramilitary guard force of 3-5, 000 men deployed under the personal control of Ruslan Khasbulatov, the speaker of the Russian parliament. ""Don't worry about it"", was what Sergei Filatov, Khasbulatov's deputy, told a journalist who asked about the so-called White House guard on Monday. Filatov clearly isn't worried, since he was the one who signed the top-secret document creating the force back in October last year, according to an investigation carried out by Izvestia. Izvestia had to conduct an investigation because, in this budding democracy, a paramilitary guard force of 5, 000 men had been created - and NOBODY KNEW. Its existence became known to the public at large only after two of its agents were shot during an altercation last week with a Moscow policeman who did not know that the plainclothes men confronting him were also police, with special powers. The guards are not always in plainclothes.

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