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All nuclear weapons were removed from Kazakhstan by May 1995. Kazakh disarmament activities included:
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.
The other major Soviet military facility on Kazakh soil is the Baikonur space launch facility. Baikonur served as the home of the Soviet space exploration program and, until 1994, Russia's premier launch site for military and intelligence satellites. Kazakstan and Russia debated ownership of the facility, while the facility itself suffered acute deterioration from the region's harsh climate and from uncontrolled pilfering. In 1994 Russia formally recognized Kazakhstan's ownership of the facility, although a twenty-year lease ratified in 1995 guaranteed Russia continued use of Baikonur. Sensitive facilities inherited by military authorities from the Soviet military are all said to be on the verge of collapse. Facilities in bad repair include nuclear test and storage facilities at Kökshetau, the BN-350 breeder-reactor at Aqtau, and a tracking and monitoring station at Priozersk. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan was the most significant site of military-industrial activity in Central Asia. The republic was home to roughly three percent of Soviet defense facilities, including more than fifty enterprises and 75,000 workers, located mostly in the predominantly Russian northern parts of the country. A plant in Öskemen fabricated beryllium and nuclear reactor fuel and another at Aqtau produced uranium ore. Plants in Oral manufactured heavy machine guns for tanks and antiship missiles. In Petropavl, one plant produced SS-21 short-range ballistic missiles, and other plants manufactured torpedoes and naval communications equipment, support equipment for ICBMs, tactical missile launcher equipment, artillery, and armored vehicles. There was a torpedo-producing facility in Almaty as well. Chemical and biological weapons were produced in Aksu, and chemical weapons were manufactured in Pavlodar. By 1994 most of Kazakhstan's defense plants had ceased military production. All of them required component parts from inaccessible sources outside Kazakhstan, principally in Russia. Even more important, the Russian military-industrial complex was itself in collapse; so that Kazakhstan's military enterprises no longer could rely on Russian customers. In addition, the great majority of key workers at all these facilities were ethnic Slavs, the most employable of whom moved to Russia or other former Soviet republics. Substantial elements of Kazakhstan's military-production infrastructure remain in the republic.