After serving as an ordinary soldier in the final stages of the Russian Civil War, Kazakov became a political commissar during the 1920s but shifted over to command and staff positions from the mid-1920s.

Postwar, he rose to command of the Southern Group of Forces and the Leningrad Military District, ending his career as first deputy chief of the General Staff.

Kazakov participated in the battles against the Army of Wrangel in the Nikopol bridgehead, the Perekop–Chongar Operation in November and the elimination of anti-Soviet forces in Crimea in December.

This education prepared him to assume operational positions, and he became deputy chief of the administration and supply department of the Frunze Academy upon his graduation in May 1931.

Kazakov succeeded to the position of chief of staff of the district in April 1938,[2] rising to the ranks of kombrig on 15 July of that year and komdiv on 31 December 1939.

[1] Shortly after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, Kazakov became chief of staff of the 53rd Separate Army, formed from the Central Asian Military District for the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran.

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.

His 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.