Bagapsh Statements on Military Budget of Questionable Accuracy

President of breakaway Abkhazia Sergey Bagapsh said the Abkhaz army will be glad to recruit mid-ranking military, navy and border-guard officers of Russian citizenship into its armed forces, Regnum reports. 

According to Bagapsh, “our military doctrine is of a defensive nature.  We are not planning to attack anyone, but we will not allow anybody to attack us. The army is relatively small, without reserves there are 10-12 thousand troops, and the military budget represents 20-22% of the budget.”

To put these numbers in perspective: although the current number of residents of Abkhazia remains unknown, the Abkhaz government estimates that during the presidential elections in October 2004 there were there are a total of 120 thousand eligible voters in the region. This would mean that the active duty force (not counting reserves) represents 10% of the eligible voters.

Abkhaz prime-minister Aleksander Ankvab told Interfax in June 2005, that 2004 budgetary revenues in Abkhazia equaled 377 million Russian Rubles – roughly 13 million USD. Ankvab said the budget might not increase significantly in 2005. Hence, according to Bagapsh’s recent statement the maximum military budget is around 2.9 million USD.

These figures cast doubts on the accuracy of statements of the Abkhazia defense minister Sultan Sosnaliev who in an interview to Kommersant daily denied that arms and ammunition were supplied to the Abkhaz army from Russia and argued they were bought on, as he put it on “free market.” Responding to the Kommersant’s question on how the Abkhaz military acquired military jets (allegedly Su-25 Frogfoot), Sosnaliev responded “Well, it is a free market now! It’s only important to have money. We can buy any weapon we want. This is not a problem.”

Georgian authorities accused Russia of supplying military equipment to Abkhazia, and funding military maneuvers twice this year, which according to the Abkhaz sources involved around 5,000 troops each, with tanks, artillery, naval vessels, helicopters and 0other aircraft participating.

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