You are seening the first & only time those guys ever held an AK, which are props anyway. This is just after their "fully trained" orders were cut and just before they got on the train to the front.
They have the look of condemned men on their faces. Sad. Very, very sad.
Those guys went to school back when it was still the Soviet Union so they may have handled Ak47s in school. My wife grew up in the Lugansk Oblast of Ukraine in the Soviet Union. In her school, she had to disassemble an AK in sixth grade. In 8th grade, she had to do the field stripping and reassembly against the clock at a faster time. Schools there usually had shooting ranges too. The Soviet Union fell apart soon after my wife became a Lenin Pioneer. She was proud of her red scarf and today she is proud of her former classmates who serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Those two on the left are Lieutenants. Pretty old for Ell-Tees.
Man that lot couldn’t look any sorrier unless I was in it.