1. Mikhail Kazakov rose to chief of staff the Central Asian Military District by the time Operation Barbarossa began, and 1942 and 1943 served as chief of staff and deputy commander of fronts, with a stint as commander of the 69th Army during the Third Battle of Kharkov.
Mikhail Kazakov commanded the 10th Guards Army from early 1944 as it advanced into the Baltic states and blockaded the Courland Pocket.
Mikhail Kazakov completed primary school and after the October Revolution in 1917 became a member of the local revolutionary committee and a soldier in a food detachment.
Mikhail Kazakov fought on the Southern Front from August 1920 as a copyist in the office of the commissar of the 136th Brigade of the 46th Rifle Division, then as a Red Army man of the 407th Rifle Regiment.
Mikhail Kazakov subsequently became a party organizer in the 7th Regiment before transferring to the 2nd Red Cossack Cavalry Division in June 1924 to become commissar of its 8th Cavalry Regiment.
Mikhail Kazakov graduated from the Novocherkassk Cavalry Officers Improvement Course in 1927 and the Frunze Military Academy in 1931.
Mikhail Kazakov transferred to the 2nd Cavalry Corps, stationed in the Kiev Military District, to serve as chief of the 1st section of its staff in June 1933, and became commander and commissar of the 29th Cavalry Regiment of the 5th Cavalry Division in March 1936.
Mikhail Kazakov succeeded to the position of chief of staff of the district in April 1938, rising to the ranks of kombrig on 15 July of that year and komdiv on 31 December 1939.
Shortly after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, Mikhail Kazakov became chief of staff of the 53rd Separate Army, formed from the Central Asian Military District for the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran.
Mikhail Kazakov was given command of the 10th Guards Army of the front on 20 January 1944 and led it for the rest of the war in the Riga Offensive and the blockade of the Courland Pocket.
Mikhail Kazakov's rise to senior posts continued and he commanded the Southern Group of Forces in Hungary from December of that year and then the Leningrad Military District from October 1960.
Mikhail Kazakov was appointed chief of the Combined Staff of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization and simultaneous first deputy chief of the General Staff in November 1965.
Mikhail Kazakov died in Moscow on 25 December 1979 and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.