On 7 July, the Neitron company launched production operations of Kalashnikov rifles in Armenia in line with an agreement reached by Russia’s Kalashnikov Concern and Royalsys Engineering, reported the Armenian Radio Free Europe. 

According to the press release, the Neitron executives told Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan that their company will assemble 50,000 such guns annually as they showed him around their new production facility located near Abovian, a town 15 kilometres north of Yerevan. One of those executives, Igor Gordienko, told Sputnik news agency last month that Neitron will initially use rifle parts supplied by Kalashnikov but plans to manufacture them as well in the future.

An Armenian government statement cited Pashinyan as welcoming the development and saying that it was made possible by Armenia’s close military ties with Russia. The Russian ambassador in Yerevan, Sergey Kopyrkin, was among officials who accompanied the prime minister during his visit to the new Neitron plant. According to the statement, the AK-103 rifles will be delivered not only to the Armenian army but also foreign buyers. 

Kalashnikov’s older AK-74 rifles and PK machine guns have long been the army’s principal light weapons. The launch of Neutron’s new production operation suggests that the Armenian Defence Ministry plans to replace all AK-74s in its arsenal with the more modern AK-103 model.

The government statement also revealed that Neitron will pay additional $24 million to buy new Russian equipment for modernising and expanding its separate production of Kalashnikov cartridges. The company will also start producing night-vision gun sights and surveillance devices for the Armenian military later this year.