Many gun owners had high hopes that the consolidation of Russia’s firearm industry, which lead to the creation of the Kalashnikov Group, along with Russian WTO membership would result in Russia putting pressure on the State Department to allow a wider range of Russian consumer firearms to be imported into the USA. The US market is very important to Kalashnikov and accounts for 90% of their consumer exports.

The state-owned defense giant Rostec owns 51% of the Kalashnikov Group with the remaining 49% owned by private investors. Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana recently introduced legislation that would prohibit any US dealings with Rosoboronexport, the subsidiary of Rostec that handles all government export deals. 

Only certain named Russian firearms can be imported into the USA since the 1998 Voluntary Restraint Agreement between Russia and the USA. The AK-12 and SVD are examples of much sought after guns not on that list, the former because it was designed since the agreement and the latter because it was omitted from the agreement.

Last year Russian media reported that Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin had asked actor Steven Seagal to lobby the US Government to abolish the trade agreement and open up the US market for all Russian firearm exports. In January the Kalashnikov Group announced that they had formally contracted Seagal to promote Kalashnikov exports.

Given the present Crimea/Ukraine situation, it is unlikely that the Kremlin will ask to abolish that trade agreement or that the US Government would consider such a request. 

It is going to be many years until we see a semi-automatic AK-12 imported into the USA. Seagal is not going to be able to change that.