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Mikhail Kalishnakov and Eugene Stoner

Interview Kalishnakov 2

Kalashnikov criticizes U.S. for Venezuela arms export statement

ABU DHABI. Feb 12 (Interfax) - The U.S. State Department statements that exports of Russian assault rifles to Venezuela could destabilize the situation in that country and the region on the whole are groundless, said Russian prominent weapons designer Mikhail Kalashnikov, who is a consultant to the general director of the Rosoboronexport government weapons export agency.

"We have been blamed and will be blamed for many things. We need to treat these accusations critically, as they are, as a rule, prompted by the Americans' desire to bar us from entering new markets," Kalashnikov said.

There are no restrictions on exports of Russian assault rifles, including to Venezuela, Kalashnikov said. "I believe we need to continue to promote our Russian weapons on foreign markets, because they must safeguard peace and friendship between nations," he said.

Kalashnikov said he designed his legendary assault rifles as a defense weapon. "We sell weapons not for offensive but for defense purposes, and this is done in strict compliance with international standards and regulations. As far as I know, there are no restrictions on weapons supplies to Venezuela, and if that country decided to purchase our assault rifles, we can only be glad about this," he said.

If Russia stops exporting its assault rifles, other countries like Hungary, Bulgaria, and others, which produce them in large quantities, will do this for Russia, Kalashnikov said. He noted that other countries producing such assault rifles claim that they are not worse than those produced in Russia. "In reality it is not so. There are no assault rifles better than Russian ones. The weapons that are produced abroad look like ours but they are in fact different. We have repeatedly tested them and concluded that our weapons are better. A copy is always worse than an original," he said.

Kalashnikov claimed that in a real combat situation, everybody, including even Americans, tries to get a Kalashnikov if they have such a chance. "The Americans boasted of their weapons and claimed that they are better than Russian ones. But when they got into trouble in Vietnam, they started to throw away their capricious guns and took our AK-47s. The same we see now in Iraq. They use our weapons openly," he said.

Aint it a shame...he's right


 

An interview with Mikhail Kalashnikov

Robert Fisk, The Independent (centrist), London, England.
April 22, 2001.

  
Mikhael Kalashnikov in 1996. (Photo courtesy guns.ru)

Born in November 1919—one of 18 children, of whom only six survived—Mikhail Kalashnikov was a Soviet T-38 tank commander in 1941, wounded in the shoulder and back when a German shell smashed part of the tank’s armor into his body. “I was in the hospital, and a soldier in the bed beside me asked: ‘Why do our soldiers have only one rifle for two or three of our men, when the Germans have automatics?’ So I designed one. I was a soldier, and I created a machine gun for a soldier. It was called an Avtomat Kalashnikova, the automatic weapon of Kalashnikov—AK—and it carried the date of its first manufacture, 1947.”

The AK-47 became the symbol of revolution—Palestinian, Angolan, Vietnamese, Algerian, Afghan, Hezbollah, the battle rifle of the Warsaw Pact. And, of course, I asked old Mikhail Kalashnikov how he could justify all this blood, all those corpses torn to bits by his invention. He had been asked before. “You see, maybe all these feelings come about because one side wants to liberate itself with arms. But in my opinion, it is the good that prevails. You may live to see the day when good prevails—it will be after I am dead. But the time will come when my weapons will be no more used or necessary.”

This is incredible. The AK-47 has mythic status. Kalashnikov admits this. “When I met the Mozambique minister of defense, he presented me with his country’s national banner, which carries the image of a Kalashnikov submachine gun. And he told me that when all the liberation soldiers went home to their villages, they named their sons ‘Kalash.’ I think this is an honor, not just a military success. It’s a success in life when people are named after me, after Mikhail Kalashnikov.” Even the Lebanese Hezbollah have included the AK-47 on their Islamic banner—the rifle forms the “l” of “Allah.”

We embarked along the Russian version of a familiar moral track. “My aim was to create armaments to protect the borders of my motherland. It is not my fault that the Kalashnikov became very well-known in the world; that it was used in many troubled places. I think the policies of these countries are to blame, not the designers. Man is born to protect his family, his children, his wife. But I want you to know that apart from armaments, I have written three books in which I try to educate our youth to show respect for their families, for old people, for history.

 

New Anti-Terrorist
Kalashnikov Unveiled
 
Russia To Build 2 Kalashnikov Factories In Venezuela By 2010
Space War
By Dario Thuburn
8-15-7
 
 
 
IZHEVSK, Russia (AFP) -- 
Light, silent and regulation black: the AK-9 is the latest model of the famous Kalashnikov assault rifle to come off production lines at the Izhmash factory in Russia. "It shoots virtually without a sound and it can go through a bullet-proof vest," said Alexei Dragunov, 52, one of the designers of the weapon, as he assembled the gun at a firing range in a Russian forest.
 
Russian special forces last year asked Izhmash, based in the city of Izhevsk, to make a rifle that combined the qualities of the Kalashnikov with the stealth required for secret missions, company officials said.
 
"It's for special forces for anti-terrorist operations," said Vladimir Grodetsky, 56, director of the Izhmash factory, at a briefing during a rare visit for foreign journalists to the plant.
 
The AK-9 is fitted with a silencer and fires large 9.0-millimeter caliber bullets intended to pierce body armour. At 3.8 kilograms (8.4 pounds) it is also slightly lighter than previous models of the Kalashnikov.
 
"There's no one else making it," said Richard Jones, editor of British-based Jane's Infantry Weapons, a specialist journal, referring to other rifles combining such a large caliber with a silencer.
 
Other guns with the same caliber, which slows down the bullet in order to silence it but can still pierce body armour, are the Russian-made VSS and the VSK rifles used by special forces, Jones said.
 
"There's an increasing interest in suppressor weapons for... tactical reasons," said Jones, using the specialist term for guns fitted with silencers.
 
The AK-9 could be of interest to other special forces in the world -- "commando-like units who have been able to engage an enemy sentry or shoot their way out of trouble and not be heard," he added.
 
The weapon is still being tested and, pending approval from the Russian defence ministry, it is being kept under wraps. During a visit to a shooting range outside Izhevsk, the gun was shown but could not be demonstrated.
 
"We think it has big export potential. We hope we can get export permission as soon as possible, said Grodetsky, explaining that arms factories now had to be "flexible," providing for regular soldiers as well as special forces.
 
Development of the weapon is part of a massive programme of modernisation of Russia's armed forces, ranging from hi-tech Iskander missiles to new uniforms for Russian soldiers.
 
"The Russian army is now receiving modern equipment, not a large part but it's a serious programme of modernisation," said Nikolai Novichkov, an arms specialist at ITAR-TASS news agency.
 
Izhmash is known above all for the Kalashnikov, a global brand and one of the most widely used small weapons in the world, valued by soldiers and guerrillas for its simplicity and reliability.
 
Izhmash makes roughly 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles every year and estimates that another 900,000 rifles similar to the Kalashnikov are being made in other countries such as Bulgaria, China and Poland as "counterfeits."
 
The Russia-made Kalashnikov sells for some 400 dollars (291 euros) a piece.
 
Celebrations are being held this week in Izhevsk for the 60th anniversary of the first AK-47 Kalashnikov rifle. The factory is also marking a 200-year history of gunmaking.
 
The earliest rifle models produced at the factory, some 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) east of Moscow, were used in the Russian Empire's battles against Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th century.
 
Dragunov, who started working at Izhmash 29 years ago, is part of that history. His father developed a gun, the Dragunov sniper rifle, that is now used by the Russian army and exported throughout the world.
 
"It's the same as any kind of engineering except you get to see the final product more easily," said Dragunov, whose youngest son also works at the Izhmash arms design centre.
 
Asked whether he feels any remorse about producing guns, Dragunov smiles and answers: "Can you imagine a world without violence? Firearms are not for killing people, they're a deterrent."

 

 

 

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