What about the AKM? I coulda sworn that they would have been happy with that update to the platform? It happened a long time ago, but it's been pretty proven to work well...
As far as I can see, from comments on another forum by former Spetznaz types; their AK-74s and PKMs seem to work just as well as the M-16/M-4 at similar ranges. Not only was the Russian official less-than-knowledgable about Russian weaponry, the idiot who wrote the story was even less knowledgable, thinking that the AK-47 is the current-issue firearm of the Russian military.