Kazakhstan Special Weapons

All nuclear weapons were removed from Kazakhstan by May 1995. Kazakh disarmament activities included:

Return of 1400 strategic nuclear warheads and 104 SS-18 ICBMs, as well as their support equipment to Russia;

Eliminating 147 ICBM (mostly SS-18) silo launchers, launch control centers and test silos located at Zhangiz-Tobe, Derzhavinsk, Semipalatinsk and Leninsk;

Closing and sealing 178 of 181 nuclear weapons test tunnels at the Degelen Mountain Test Tunnel Complex and 13 vertical test bore holes at Balapan;

Dismantling seven heavy bombers.

Kazakhstan has since become party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), and Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). On September 8, 2006, Kazakhstan joined Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in signing the Treaty of Semipalatinsk, which established a nuclear-weapon free zone in Central Asia.

Kazakhstan's other military significance was as a test range and missile launch site. The republic was the location of approximately only one percent of all Soviet test ranges, but this one percent included some all Soviet Union's largest and most important test ranges, especially in the aerospace and nuclear programs. Test sites included a range at Vladimirovka used to integrate aircraft with their weapons systems; a range at Saryshaghan for flight testing of ballistic missiles and air defense systems; a similar facility at Emba; and the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Weapons Proving Grounds, which was the more important of the two major nuclear testing facilities in the Soviet Union. In the four decades of its existence, there were at least 466 nuclear explosions at Semipalatinsk.

Sources and Resources



