Free Republic

Russian officials say the 94-year-old designer of the AK-47 assault rifle has been hospitalized. The health department of the province of Udmurtia said in Monday’s statement carried by the Interfax news agency that Mikhail Kalashnikov is in an emergency unit. …

Russia's legendary rifle-designer Mikhail Kalashnikov was recovering in stable condition in intensive care Tuesday after being hospitalised with general fatigue, reports said. An aide to the 93-year-old father of the AK-47 said Kalashnikov had been having heart problems and feeling poorly since March. "When I visited him at home last week, he told me that nothing seemed to hurt, but that he simply had no strength left," assistant Nikolai Shklyayev told the RIA Novosti news agency.

The Russian firm Izhmash (Izhevsk Mechanical Works) holds the patents for the AK-47, and it is going broke because of all the illegal copies of its weapons being produced worldwide. Izhmash is having little success in trying to force companies in Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Israel, China and the United States to pay licensing fees for the AK-47s they produce. The typical defense is that it is a much improved rifle, with only a superficial similarity to the Izhmash AK-47. Some claim that Russia abandoned the AK-47 design in the 1970s, when they switched to the 5.45mm AK-74. Actually, the original...

THE Russian producer of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, the world's most ubiquitous firearm, is facing bankruptcy owing to falling orders. A court in the Russian region of Udmurtiya has accepted a bankruptcy petition filed against Izhmash, the country's biggest arms manufacturer and the maker of the rifle. The iconic weapon has been produced in the millions and adopted by 106 armed forces across the globe, but production in its home land is now in doubt. Another Russian company, Gremikha, claims that the AK's maker owes them £8 million, and has now gone to court to get its money. Arms sales...