Russian Ministry of Defense has signed a three-year contract with Kalashnikov Concern for 150,000 AK-12 and AK-15 Kalashnikov assault rifles.
Russian army will receive 50,000 AK-12 and AK-15 general purpose military assault rifles in 2019, 2020 and 2021, according to the Interfax news agency.
New general purpose military assault rifles are designed and manufactured by Kalashnikov Concern (formerly Izhmash). It is one of the modern derivatives of the Russian AK-Pattern series of assault rifles The assault rifles received new indices of GRAU 6P70 (5.45 mm caliber AK-12) and 6P71 (7.62 mm caliber AK-15).
The company began the first deliveries of AK-12 assault rifles as part of the state defense order in December 2018. The volume of the shipped consignment was 2.5 thousand automatic machines.
The AK-12 was developed as part of the “Ratnik” program as an element of a promising set of equipment for the soldiers of the Russian Armed Forces.