Weapon of mass death: AK-47 assault rifle's creator dead at 94

Mikhail Kalashnikov, chief designer of the AK-47 assault rifle, poses with the latest model, the AK-103 during a news conference in Moscow in this April 15, 2006 file photo. PHOTO: REUTERS

MOSCOW: Mikhail Kalashnikov, who designed the iconic AK-47 assault rifle, a weapon arguably responsible for the deaths of more people in battle than weapons of mass destruction of the chemical, biological and nuclear variety, has died, Russia’s ITAR-TASS news agency reported on Monday.

Kalashnikov designed the AK-47 in 1947 as part of his attempt to improve the weapons availbel to the then Soviet infantryman.

While the weapon became synonymous with killing on a sometimes indiscriminate scale, he was seen in the Soviet Union as a national hero and symbol of Moscow’s proud military past.

Kalshnikov, who was in his 20s when he created the AK-47 just after World War Two, died in his home city of Izhevsk, near the Ural Mountains, where his gun is still made, the agency cited a spokesperson for the province’s president as saying.

“He died about one-and-a-half hours ago,” Viktor Chulkov, the spokesperson for the Udmurtia leader Alexander Volkov, told AFP.

So popular was the AK-47 that it is probably the only weapon that has been used in almost every large scale conflict in the second half of the 20th century, and can boast more kills than any other single firearm.

Lavished with honours including the prestigious Hero of Russia prize for designing the iconic rifle, Kalashnikov has said he had never intended for it to become the preferred weapon in conflicts around the world.

“I created a weapon to defend the fatherland’s borders. It’s not my fault that it was sometimes used where it shouldn’t have been. This is the fault of politicians,” he said during an award ceremony at the Kremlin to mark his 90th birthday.

AK-47 the rifle and its variants are the weapons of choice for dozens of armies and guerrilla groups around the world.

More than 100 million Kalashnikov rifles have been sold worldwide and they are wielded by fighters in such far-flung conflict zones as Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.

But their inventor, a World War II veteran, has barely profited financially from them and lived modestly in Izhevsk, an industrial town 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) east of Moscow.

The Izmash factory that was the home manufacturer of the weapon in the central Russian region of Udmurtia has now fallen on hard times after a collapse in orders following the fall of the USSR, a fact that prompted Kalashnikov to make a personal appeal to President Vladimir Putin.

Born in a Siberian village as the 17th child of family on November 10, 1919, Kalashnikov had a tragic childhood during which his father was deported under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in 1930.

Wounded during combat in 1941, Kalashnikov designed his rifle in 1947, driven by Soviet defeats in the early years of World War II at the hands of far better armed German soldiers.

In October 1941 in fierce battles around Bryansk he was heavily wounded and shell-shocked. According to his official Izmash biography, Kalashnikov first conceived of the weapon while recovering in hospital.

The rifle quickly became prized for its sturdy reliability in difficult field conditions and Kalashnikov was honoured with the Soviet Union’s top awards including the Lenin and the Stalin prizes.

Yet the design was never patented internationally and Izmash always complained that its potential income from the weapon was hit badly by the “pirated” versions of the designs made abroad.

The 205-year-old Izmash plant remains one of the main producers of Russian weapons and is treasured as a national icon.