News East West
LONDON: Mikhail Kalashnikov, the Russian who invented the AK-47 assault rifle, suffered from spiritual pain just before his death on Dec 23 because of the killings caused around the world by his invention.
Kalashnikov, who died at the age of 94, sent a letter of regret to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill I of Moscow expressing his “spiritual pain” about his invention’s capacity to kill.
The BBC carried the English translation of the letter published by Russian newspaper Izvestia today. The Ak-47 inventor wrote:
“My spiritual pain is unbearable.
“I keep having the same unsolved question: if my rifle claimed people’s lives, then can it be that I… a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths?
“The longer I live, the more this question drills itself into my brain and the more I wonder why the Lord allowed man to have the devilish desires of envy, greed and aggression.’’
Pained by the use of his invention by terrorists to kill innocent people, Kalashnikov had said a few years ago, “It is painful for me to see when criminal elements of all kinds fire from my weapon.’’
More than 100 AK-47 rifles have been sold around the world since its invention.
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