Georgian Army Picks US-made M240 Machine Guns To Replace Kalashnikov Rifles

Georgia will replace its Kalashnikov machine guns with US-produced M240 machine guns, the press service of the Georgian Defense Ministry said in a statement Monday.

According to the statement, the ministry will carry out the demonstration of new M240 machine guns during a ceremony celebrating the second anniversary since the opening of the NATO-Georgian Joint Training and Evaluation Centre (JTEC) in Krtsanisi Tuesday.

"Defense Minister Levan Izoria, head of the General Staff Maj. Gen. Vladimer Chachibaia and US Ambassador to Georgia Ian Kelly will attend the demonstration of US-produced M240 machine guns on the shooting range of the JTEC. Beginning tomorrow, PK machine guns will be gradually replaced in service of the Georgian army by US analogs M240, meeting NATO standards," the statement reads.

The M240 is a belt-fed, air-cooled, gas-operated, fully automatic machine gun that fires from the open bolt position. This 7.62mm machine gun is being issued to infantry, armor, combat engineer, special force/rangers, and selected field artillery units that require medium support fires and replaced the ground-mounted M-60 series machine guns currently in use.