the east germans and poles were among the first to try the shift to .223 kalashnikov's. east germany with its' weiger and poland with the beryl. neither plan worked out. the east germans ended up selling their weigers off (turkey? cyprus?) and poland abandoned the beryl...unable even to complete the transition to the 5.45 tantal due to lack of funds.

i suspect the cash strapped former warsaw pact nations will continue to field their existing weapons for years to come...while gradually transitioning towards nato standards.

for the transition, i would envision a combination of weapons procured (bought from nato countries and western arms manufacturers) and western weapons manufactured locally under license.

i'll have to ask my finnish friend what he is seeing. he's currently serving as a u.n. peacekeeper in kosovo,

bulgaria had just shifted to the ak-74, after years of hanging on to their old 7.62 ak-47's.

romania stayed with the akm for years after the 5.45 was introduced. they also started the change to 5.45...but i don't know far either country got with their rechambering when the soviet ubion collapsed.

bulgaria build ak-74's under license/approval from izhmash...romania did not seek approval, but built a version of the ak-74 anyway.

i could see the limited numbers of peacekeeping troops being issued and trained on western weapons. it would be the perfect place to start converting a country's military over to nato compliant gear.