GEORGIA'S ARMS SPENDING MAY SOON TOP $10 MILLION

MOSCOW, August 9 (RIA Novosti) - Amidst promises to solve the dispute with its breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia through diplomacy, Georgia is building up its military arsenal, the Russian newspaper Vedomosti reports. The weaponry, military hardware, and ammunition Georgia has purchased in recent months will be enough for weeks of intensive combat, Vedomosti says.

The chief executive of a transnational armaments dealer told RIA on condition of anonymity that a vessel laden with Bulgarian-made shells, of 122mm caliber for howitzers and 125mm caliber for T-72 tanks, anti-tank grenade cup discharges, and other types of ammunition had arrived in the Georgian port of Poti several weeks ago. According to the source, the freight had cost the Georgian military up to 5 million dollars, and they are planning to order another 6 million dollars' worth of ammunition in the near future.

Ruslan Pukhov, editor of the Moscow Defence Brief magazine, says that purchasing cheap ammunition in the Soviet mould from Bulgaria seems the best option available to the Georgian military now that they are contemplating combat operations in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Marat Kenzhetayev, of Russia's Research Center for Disarmament, says that Bulgarian arms exporters are known to be unscrupulous traders and that to them, just any customer goes. Small wonder, then, that they are often caught selling armaments to conflict zones.