CNN Anti-Russia Propagandists Hilariously Fail Gun Knowledge 101 (Again)

CNN’s Radina Gigova posted an article about the Kalashnikov AK-12 with a baffling mistake. See if you can find it.

The rifle being shot in the Getty stock photo isn’t an AK-12. It’s not even a rifle. The dead giveaway, even to someone not particularly familiar with firearms, is the 9x19mm pistol magazine. For god’s sake, you can literally see the spent shell casing flying up to the right of the man’s head, and it’s obviously a pistol caliber.

But just to be sure, I looked up photos of the AK-12, and actually, immediately found the original Kalashnikov press release, which I don’t think Radina looked at when she wrote her article. She does cite a TASS article which didn’t include a photo, and that might be the cause of her blunder. But as we can see from the multiple Kalashnikov photos, this is what a 5.45mm AK-12 looks like, take special note of how much larger the magazine is:

Clearly not the weapon being fired. But it is (I think) the weapon sitting on the table behind him, and that might be how the mistake happened. The photographer included “AK-12” as a keyword in his upload, and Radina, or whoever it was in CNN who picked the photo, was too lazy to double check.

But if it’s not an AK-12, then what is it? Well, that turned out to not be a hard question to answer. I searched on Yandex for “AK-12 pistol caliber” (sometimes stupid search terms are the correct ones) and immediately, easily, found the answer. It’s, apparently, a TR9 Paradox Carbine.

Yes sir we have a match. According to an article on modernfirearms.net:

Kalashnikov TR9 Paradox carbine (‘smoothbore’ gun) is one of those cases when severity or lack of logic in firearm laws is circumvented by ingenuity and use of various loopholes. In particular, Russian gun laws permit rifle ownership only for those who previously legally owned shotgun for at least five consequent years. However, many shooters want rifles or carbines, and are ready to settle for a firearm which is close to their desired weapon in performance but is available on a shotgun / smoothbore license. To achieve this ‘rifle like’ effect, Russian gun makers use old shotgun bore styles which were specifically designed for slugs, namely Paradox and Lancaster systems. In Kalashnikov TR9 weapon barrel is made with Paradox bore, which is smooth for most of its length, except for about 10-15 cm closest to the muzzle, where rifling is made by cold hammer forging process. Legally, such Paradox barrels are considered to be “smoothbore” in Russia and such weapons are registered as smoothbore (“shotguns”), even if they shoot slugs only. There is a company well known in Russia for development of several types of ‘smoothbore’ ammunition, based on rifle rounds. It is a Techkrim Ltd from Izhevsk. In this particular case Techkrim produced a new 345TK cartridge, which is legally certified as ‘smoothbore’ ammunition. New cartridge is made to emulate 9×19 Luger ammunition, and features rimless steel case 22 mm long, loaded with variety of jacketed or hollowpoint bullets 8.8mm in diameter, weighting about 7.5 – 9.5 gram, with cartridge overall length being compatible with 9×19 Luger magazines. Ballistics of the 345TK round is also similar to 9×19 Luger, with effective range from 30cm carbine barrel being about 100 meters, give or take.

Look, maybe I sound like I’m being too harsh on Radina, but I’m not. Look at some of the text in her article:

Kalashnikov Group Chief Designer Sergey Urzhumtsev told Russian state media TASS on Friday the upgrade followed “input” gathered from “experience of the gun’s use in the special operation” – a euphemism for Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

I mean, that’s literally just the name for the operation. Did CNN ever call Operation Iraqi Freedom “a euphemism for Washington’s unprovoked invasion of Iraq?” No, of course they didn’t. So Radina had the time in her day to insert childish propaganda into her story, but not to fact check the accompanying imagery – or apparently – even to do basic proofreading. Consider some of the following lines:

The 5.45 mm AK-12 is “the standard service assault rifle of the Russian infantry and other units,” according to the Kalashnikov website.

The Russian military has been undergoing reequipment with AK-12 rifles since 2018, according to the Kalashnikov website.

Come on, this copy is just sloppy, lazy, and repetitive. How did this woman get a master’s degree and still write like shit?

My larger point here is that CNN parades itself as the arbiter of the truth, especially about war, but repeatedly shows no knowledge about war or weapons at all, and that reveals a dirty little secret about most news outlets. Journalists go to university and learn, or are supposed to learn, basic English skills, and that’s it. They don’t know anything about the fields they write about, and they’re generally too incompetent and dim-witted to do even the basic online research like I illustrated above. And that applies to Radina specifically. From her biography:

She has played an integral part of the network’s coverage of the new era of US — Russia relations, the global fight against terrorism and the rise of ISIS, the war in eastern Ukraine…

This is the person telling you that Ukraine is winning, Russia is losing, and we need to continue pumping hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons to Ukraine and there’s no risk in doing it. Radina is by far not the only one either. CNN isn’t just one clown, it’s a whole circus. Consider Mark “full semi-auto” Hertling, who I wrote about previously?

CNN’s Latest Fake News About Russia

Ultimately, that’s why CNN is so obsessed with Donald Trump and Russia and talks about almost nothing else. They truly have nothing else going for them except to clickbait people with their sensationalist, hate-mongering gibberish.

Ian Kummer

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