At the same time as Russia’s military keeps pounding Ukraine with missiles and other destructive weapons, the Ukrainian Forces are firing back with weapons that have been explicitly earmarked to liberate their nation from Russian interference.

A cruise of weapons on the Ukrainian combat zones was covered in a special report prepared by SOFREP in 2015. To date, the Ukrainian Forces are magnifying the use of these weapons to fire back against the assaults made by Russian soldiers on its continuing conflict.

AK-47

Ukrainian assault rifle, designed by the National Space Agency of Ukraine. It is l bullpup conversion of the conventional AK-74 design. (Source: Render3superCC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, several of the former countries, such as Ukraine, were left with a large cache of small guns left over from the Red Army, including AK-47s.

The AK-47 was developed to be a compact, dependable, and fully automatic rifle that could be built rapidly and at a low-cost utilizing mass production techniques that were cutting edge in the Soviet Union in the late 1940s. The AK-47 uses a long stroke fuel injection system, typically associated with high levels of dependability in challenging environments. In addition, the gun can withstand high amounts of foreign matter and fouling because it is designed with a big gas piston, ample clearances between moving parts, and a tapered cartridge case. This design also allows the gun to cycle typically.