Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of the assault rifle that has killed more people than any other firearm in the world, has died at the age of 94.

Kalashnikov, who created the AK-47 just after World War Two, died in his home city of Izhevsk, near the Ural Mountains, where his gun is still made.

He had been ill for some time and had been in intensive care since November 17.

Kalashnikov, a Russian peasant with little formal education, designed the eponymous rifle in 1947.

Specifically engineered to work in the harsh conditions in which Soviet troops operated, it became one of the most successful weapons ever produced and turned its inventor into one of the most lauded men in the Soviet Union.

But the gun, cheap, efficient and easily mass-produced, soon became synonymous with killing on a sometimes indiscriminate scale.