The fact that people die because of an AK-47 is not because of the designer, but because of politics.

I was probably born with some designing abilities.

My aim was to create armaments to protect the borders of my motherland. It is not my fault that the Kalashnikov became very well-known in the world; that it was used in many troubled places. I think the policies of these countries are to blame, not the designers. Man is born to protect his family, his children, his wife. But I want you to know that apart from armaments, I have written three books in which I try to educate our youth to show respect for their families, for old people, for history.

I was trying to perform as best as possible. I was a boy at the time, but worked well with the sickle.

Then it was like a genie out of the bottle and it began to walk all on its own and in directions I did not want.

It is the Germans who are responsible for the fact that I became a fabricator of arms. If not for them, I would have constructed agricultural machines.

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?