Officer Stanislav Petrov, who prevented nuclear war: Did I save the world? It was a working episode. Gave the world a chance

The man who saved the world was reprimanded by his superiors

The night from September 25 to 26, 1983 could have been fatal for humanity. The command post of the secret military unit Serpukhov-15 received an alarm from the space early warning system. The computer reported that five ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads were launched from an American base towards the Soviet Union.

The operational duty officer that night was 44-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov. After analyzing the situation, he reported that the system had made a mistake. I called the government communications all clear: “The information is false.”

His son Dmitry told MK about how Stanislav Petrov lived and passed away.

Stanislav Petrov.

“My father joked: “They spotted a flying saucer.”

- Did Stanislav Evgrafovich deliberately choose a military profession?

My father was from a military family. He was an excellent student, practiced boxing, and was very well prepared physically. They then lived near Vladivostok. My father passed the entrance exams to a visiting commission in Khabarovsk. He was very passionate about mathematics and was happy to learn in 1967 that he had entered the Kiev Higher Radio Engineering School at the faculty where algorithmists were trained. The era of cybernetics and electronic computers was beginning. After college, he ended up serving in the Moscow region, in a military town code-named Serpukhov-15. Officially, the Center for Observing Celestial Bodies was located there, but in reality it was a classified part.

- Did you know that it works with a missile attack warning system?

My father had a high level of secrecy; he did not say anything about his service. Disappeared at the site. Regardless of time, he could be called to work both at night and on weekends. We only knew that his work was connected with the computer center.

- How did it become known that on the night of September 25-26, 1983, the world was on the verge of a nuclear disaster?

Information about the emergency situation at the facility was leaked to the garrison. Mom began to ask my father what happened, he joked: “They spotted a flying saucer.”

And only at the end of 1990, retired Colonel General Yuri Votintsev, in a conversation with journalist Dmitry Likhanov, spoke about what actually happened on that September night in Serpukhov-15. In 1983, the general commanded the anti-missile and anti-space defense forces of the air defense forces and was at the site within an hour and a half. And soon the journalist found my father in Fryazino. An article was published in the weekly magazine “Top Secret” where my father described in detail how he acted during a combat alert.

Only then did we learn that my father worked in space intelligence, about a group of spacecraft that, from an altitude of about 40 thousand kilometers, monitored nine American bases with ballistic missiles. About how on September 26, at 00.15, everyone on duty at the site was deafened by a buzzer, and the sign “start” lit up on the light board. The computer confirmed the launch of a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead, and the reliability of the information was the highest. The missile allegedly flew from a military base on the West Coast of the United States.

My father later recalled that the entire combat crew turned around and looked at him. A decision had to be made. He could act according to the regulations and simply pass the information along the chain to the duty officer. And “at the top” they would have already given the order for a retaliatory launch. They were waiting for confirmation from him. But the visual contact specialists, who sat in dark rooms, did not see the rocket launch on the screens... When they called over government communications, the father said: “I AM GIVING YOU FALSE INFORMATION.” And then the siren roared again: the second missile went, the third, the fourth, the fifth... The sign on the display was no longer “start”, but “missile attack”.

My father was alarmed that the missiles were fired from one point, and he was taught that during a nuclear strike, missiles are launched simultaneously from several bases. Over government communications, he once again confirmed: “The information is false.”

With son and daughter.

- It’s hard to believe that an officer in Soviet times did not trust the system and made an independent decision.

My father was an algorithmist, an analyst, and he created this system himself. I believed that a computer is just a machine, and a person also has intuition. If the missiles were actually heading towards the target, they should have been “seen” by early warning radars. This is the second control line. The agonizing minutes of waiting dragged on... It soon became clear that there was no attack or missile launch. Mom, having learned how close the nuclear disaster was, was horrified. After all, my father was not supposed to be on duty at the central command post that night. A colleague asked him to replace him.

- The commission later established what could have caused the failure?

The satellite's sensors perceived the light of the sun's rays reflected from high clouds as the launch of American rockets. The father then remarked: “It’s space playing a trick on us.” Then changes were made to the space system that excluded such situations.

- And a year after what happened, Stanislav Evgrafovich left the army without receiving colonel’s shoulder straps...

My father was 45 years old at the time. I have a solid experience behind me. That night, when the radars did not confirm the missile launch, and my father’s decision turned out to be correct, his colleagues told him: “That’s it, Lieutenant Colonel Petrov, drill a hole for the order.” But the general who arrived at the command post... scolded his father. Blamed him for the combat log being left blank. But time was compressed then: the computer reported a nuclear attack, one missile followed another... My father had a telephone receiver in one hand, and a microphone in the other. They later told him: “Why didn’t you fill it out retroactively?..” But my father believed that adding an additional entry was already a criminal matter. He would not commit a forgery.

It was necessary to find a scapegoat - the father was made to blame. In the end, as he himself admitted, he was fed up with everything and wrote a report. In addition, our mother was very ill and needed care. And my father, as the chief analyst, was constantly called to the site even during non-working hours.

“During difficult times, my father worked as a security guard at a construction site”

- Remember how you moved to Fryazino?

This was in 1986, I was 16 years old then. At the end of his military service, my father needed to vacate the apartment in the garrison. He had a choice where to move to live. My mother had a sister who lived in Fryazino. They decided to settle in this town near Moscow. My father was immediately taken to the Comet Research Institute, where a space information and control system operating at the facility was created. He worked at a military-industrial complex enterprise as a civilian, as a senior engineer in the department of the chief designer. It was the lead organization in the field of anti-satellite weapons. What is noteworthy is that then it was forbidden to use any imported components.

My father’s work schedule was already different, no one bothered him, no one called him to work on holidays and weekends. He worked at Comet for more than 13 years, and in 1997 he was forced to quit in order to take care of our mother, Raisa Valerievna. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor, the disease began to progress, and doctors practically wrote her off... After her death, her father worked as a security guard at a construction site. A former colleague called him there. They went on daily duty, guarding new buildings in the southwest of Moscow.

- Foreign newspapers began to write about Stanislav Petrov. He was awarded prestigious international awards...

In 2006, at the UN headquarters in New York, he was presented with a crystal figurine of “Hand Holding the Globe,” which was engraved: “To the man who prevented nuclear war.” In 2012, my father received the German Media Award in Baden-Baden. And a year later he became a laureate of the Dresden Prize, which is awarded for the prevention of armed conflicts.

My father recalled these trips with warmth. At all his speeches he repeated that he did not consider himself a hero, that it was just one of the working moments. And the decision on a retaliatory strike would be made not by him, but by the country’s top leadership.

- Did the bonuses come in handy?

My father supported the family of his daughter, my sister Lena, with money. At one time she graduated from technical school and received a specialty as a chef. But then she got married and gave birth to two children. She and her husband lived in the south, and when perestroika struck, they returned to Fryazino. There was no work, no housing...

- Didn’t you become a military man?

Two years in the army was enough for me. I realized that the military path was not for me. But I work as a process equipment adjuster at a military plant - the Istok research and production enterprise.

“Kevin Costner sent $500 as a thank you.”

In 2014, a feature-documentary film “The Man Who Saved the World” was made about Stanislav Petrov, where he played himself. How did he rate the picture?

This is a film produced in Denmark. It was with great difficulty that my father was persuaded to take part in the filming. He was “processed” for about six months. He set the condition that he should not be disturbed too much, so the filming stretched over quite a long period. I remember the filmmakers called: “We’re going,” my father categorically stated: “When I tell you, then you’ll come.”

But still, the father told director Peter Anthony and producer Jacob Starberg everything possible about that day - September 26, 1983. They thoroughly reproduced the command post according to the drawings. These scenes were filmed at a military facility in Riga. The role of the young father was played by Sergei Shnyrev. The film also starred foreign stars: Matt Damon, Robert De Niro... And Kevin Costner, who was involved in the film, in gratitude for the fact that his father did not launch missiles with nuclear warheads into the air, later sent his father 500 dollars.

The film received two honorable mention awards at the Woodstock Film Festival. But my father never saw the picture. I downloaded the film on the Internet and invited him to watch it, but he refused. According to the contract, he was entitled to a fee. I don’t remember the exact amount, but with the money we received we bought new clothes and started making repairs, although we never finished them.

- That is, Stanislav Evgrafovich was not in poverty?

In recent years, he had a pension of 26 thousand rubles.

- What were you interested in?

Mathematics, military history. My father always read a lot and collected a large library. I suggested that he write a book, describe the events of his life. But he had no desire for this.

- Did any of his colleagues come to see him?

Three of his colleagues lived with their families in Fryazino. When meeting, he willingly communicated with them. But he didn’t have any one bosom friend. My father was a homebody by nature. He read scientific journals, fiction... He was not bored.

- What were his last years like?

My father started having health problems. First they discovered clouding of the lens and performed surgery, but it turned out that the retina was severely damaged. His vision hasn't improved much.

Stanislav Petrov.

And then a volvulus happened. My father didn’t like going to the doctors, he thought: my stomach would hurt and it would go away. It got to the point where I had to call an ambulance. When the doctors, before the operation, began to find out what chronic diseases he was suffering from, the father could not remember anything: he had never been in the hospital, had not undergone medical examination...

The operation lasted four hours. After the anesthesia, my father was not himself, he was delirious, and he began to hallucinate. I took a leave of absence from work, began to nurse him, and fed him baby food. And yet he pulled him out of this state. It seemed that everything was starting to get better, although he remained chained to the bed. I tied the seat belts for him from the car so that he could use them to sit down on his own. But my father always smoked a lot, and since he moved little, he developed congestive hypostatic pneumonia. These last few days he didn't want to fight at all. I left for work, and when I returned, he was no longer alive. The father died on May 19, 2017.

- Did a lot of people gather at the funeral?

I only informed his relatives about his death. But I simply don’t know the phone numbers of my friends and colleagues. On his father’s birthday, September 7, his e-mail received a congratulation from his foreign friend, political activist from Germany Karl Schumacher. Using an online translator, I told him that dad died in the spring.

- Don’t they ask you to give your father’s documents, awards and things to the museum to make an exhibition?

There were no such proposals. We have three rooms in our apartment. In one of them I want to hang photographs of my father, lay out documents, books that he loved to read... If anyone is interested in looking at this, let them come, I will show it.

Abroad, Stanislav Petrov is called a “man of peace.” From his military service he still has the Order “For Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR”, III degree, the anniversary medal “For Valorous Labor” (“For Military Valour”), and the medal “For Impeccable Service”, III degree.

“A quarter of a century ago, Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov saved the world from thermonuclear war, but Russia still prefers not to notice the hero’s feat” - this is the leitmotif of speeches in the Western press by representatives of the so-called “international public organization” - the Association of World Citizens.

In New York, at the UN headquarters, the retired lieutenant colonel was awarded a crystal figurine of “Hand Holding the Globe” with the inscription “To the man who prevented a nuclear disaster” engraved on it.

According to the president of the association, Douglas Mattern, on September 26, 1983, Lieutenant Colonel Petrov, while serving as an operational duty officer at the command post of the Serpukhov-15 air defense missile attack warning system, decided to ignore the automatic indications of the launch of five American ballistic missiles from the United States in the direction of the USSR. Minuteman missiles with ten nuclear warheads each. The screens flashed, and the inscription appeared on the display map: “Missile attack!” All data was immediately double-checked - no signs of error. And then Petrov performed not a military, but a human feat - contrary to all electronic evidence, he declared the alarm a false alarm with his authority. And he turned out to be right: the warning system failed.

About the same thing a couple of years ago, Petrov told American journalists who were asking from which base the Russian satellite detected the launch. "

What difference does it make to you? - he said then. “There wouldn’t be America anyway.”

At the end of May 2004, according to Trud, representatives of the American Association specially came to Moscow to thank Petrov and present him with a memorial sign “Honorary Citizen of the World” and a prize... of a thousand dollars.

A RIA correspondent asked Stanislav Petrov in New York: was he awarded or punished for his action at that time?

“Neither one nor the other happened,” answered the retired lieutenant colonel. “At first, of course, they said: “We will submit for an award.” But then they appointed a state commission to investigate the reasons, which, as usual, found shortcomings in my actions. The case "The fact is that it included people through whose fault this failure occurred."

“Foreigners tend to exaggerate my heroism,” the former officer said in another interview. “What can we take from them - well-fed, apolitical people. Sometimes half the address is written on the envelopes: “city of Fryazino, hero such and such” - and it gets it. But I just did his job."

By the way, the September night of 1983 and Petrov himself were declassified by his former boss, Colonel General Votintsev, telling Western journalists about it. And away we go - articles in the most famous foreign publications, television filming, trips. Stanislav Evgrafovich was once driven around Europe by a certain Karl, a citizen of Germany, who is known to be the owner of a network of funeral homes.

A Trud correspondent contacted the UN headquarters in New York and asked representatives of the information center about the Association of World Citizens. To our surprise, little is known about such an organization there.

“You can’t imagine: hundreds of organizations use our platform for self-promotion,” UN staff said. “And the name of almost every one of them begins with the word “association.” As for the organization you named, it seems to be known... for its high-profile actions for the Protection of Human Rights in China."

Commentary by a military observer

This whole thing looks very dubious and looks like some kind of PR campaign. If the fate of the world, even to the slightest extent, depended on the individual decisions of operational standby missile attack warning systems (MSWS) on both sides of the ocean, the nuclear apocalypse would most likely have arrived long ago. If only because during the half-century strategic confrontation between the United States and the USSR in the Cold War, computers failed more than once. This happened, for example, in 1980 with the American early warning system. Information about the mass launch of Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles appeared on its screens. Lieutenant Colonel Petrov was not there, but, as we know, the war did not happen. The Pentagon managed to hold an emergency conference call between command headquarters and the White House staff. At the same time, to remove them from possible attack, aircraft equipped as command posts for strategic forces and command relay aircraft were scrambled. Our own nuclear forces were brought to the highest level of combat readiness for a retaliatory strike. In the meantime, specialists figured everything out and canceled the alarm.

Therefore, it is not surprising that a well-known Russian specialist in the field of strategic nuclear forces, missile defense and military space, in 1993-2001, the head of the 4th Research Institute of the Ministry of Defense, Major General Vladimir Dvorkin, was brief in his comments:

I know about this case. Petrov did not save anything and could not save anything. This is all bullshit.

Leading researcher at IMEMO RAS, retired Major General Vladimir Belous, believes that this is political speculation, one of those that arises in the West whenever they try to once again aggravate the issue of the “Russian military threat” and the need to strengthen control over our nuclear forces. Something similar, according to Belous, happened in 1995. Then our systems recorded the sudden launch of an American research ballistic missile from the Norwegian island of Andøya. A warning about the launch was supposedly sent to Russia, but did not reach the addressee. The signal from the early warning system reached the Russian President, but there were no preparations for a retaliatory nuclear strike. The incident was quickly dealt with. Nevertheless, in the West they immediately started talking about how the world, through the fault of Moscow, was once again on the brink of an abyss.

Eyewitness opinion (served from 1976 to 1988, first as an engineer, then as a senior engineer-chief of a combat crew, retired major Klintsov) :

I was just serving at this facility at that time, I went to the military base and I know about this fact. There was no hysteria, everything was going as normal, except for the operation of the computer. If then Lieutenant Colonel Petrov had made a decision on a mass launch, then this information would have been received by the Politburo (Secretary General), the Defense Ministry and the General Staff at the same time, and what decision would have been made is known only to God. The fact that we are still “walking on the razor’s edge” is no secret to anyone, but I respect officers like Petrov, who know how to make decisions and are responsible for it, they are being pressed from above and humiliated, but they exist and will continue to exist. Because defending the Motherland is their profession and calling.

Released in 2014, the film by Danish director Peter Anthony The man who saved the world featured Hollywood stars: Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro, Ashton Kutcher and told the world community about the events in Russia on the night of September 26, 1983. Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, operational duty officer of Serpukhov-15, a command post a hundred kilometers from Moscow, made a decision on which the preservation of peace on Earth largely depended. What happened that night and what significance does it have for humanity?

Cold War

The USSR and the USA, two superpowers, became rivals for influence in the post-war world after the end of World War II. The insoluble contradictions between the two models of social structure and their ideology, the ambitions of the leaders of the victorious countries and the absence of a real enemy led to a long confrontation that went down in history as the Cold War. Throughout this time, countries found themselves in close proximity to the outbreak of the Third World War.

It was possible to overcome 1962 only as a result of the political will and efforts of the presidents of two countries: Nikita Khrushchev and John Kennedy, shown during personal negotiations. The Cold War was accompanied by an unprecedented arms race, in which by the early eighties the Soviet Union began to lose.

Stanislav Petrov, who by 1983 had risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel of the air defense of the USSR Ministry of Defense, found himself in the situation of a new round of confrontation between the great powers due to the USSR getting involved in the war in Afghanistan. The United States ballistic missiles are deployed in European countries, to which the Soviet Union immediately withdraws from the Geneva disarmament negotiations.

Downed Boeing 747

Ronald Reagan (USA) and Yuri Andropov (November 1982 - February 1984) in power brought relations between the two countries to the highest point of confrontation since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The situation with the downing of a South Korean airliner on September 1, 1983 while flying a passenger flight to New York added fuel to the fire. Having deviated from the route by 500 kilometers, the Boeing was shot down over the territory of the USSR by the Su-15 interceptor of captain Gennady Osipovich. A ballistic missile test was expected that day, which could have led to a tragic mix-up in which an airliner with 269 people on board was mistaken for a spy plane.

Be that as it may, it is difficult to believe that the decision to destroy the target was made at the level of someone who later rose to the rank of Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force and Air Defense. There was a real commotion in the Kremlin, because US presidential candidate Larry MacDonald was on board the downed airliner. Only on September 7, the USSR admitted responsibility for the death of the passenger plane. An ICAO investigation confirmed the fact that the plane deviated from its route, but no evidence of preventive actions on the part of the Soviet Air Force has yet been found.

Needless to say, international relations were extremely spoiled at the moment when Stanislav Petrov once again took up duty. 1983 was the year when the USSR's early warning system (missile attack warning system) was in a state of constant combat readiness.

Night duty

A detailed description of the events with the downed Boeing can best be illustrated: in the event of unforeseen circumstances, it is unlikely that General Secretary Andropov’s hand would have trembled when pressing the trigger button for a retaliatory strike in the event of an enemy nuclear attack.

Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, born in 1939, being an analytical engineer, took up his next duty at the Serpukhov-15 checkpoint, where missile launches were monitored. On the night of September 26, the country slept peacefully, for there were no signs of danger. At 0:15 a.m., the early warning system siren roared loudly, highlighting the frightening word “Start” on the banner. Behind him appeared: “The first rocket has launched, the highest reliability.” It was about a nuclear strike from one of the American bases. There is no regulation on how much a commander should think, but what happened in his head during the subsequent moments is scary to think about. Because according to protocol, he was immediately obliged to report the launch of a nuclear missile by the enemy.

There was no confirmation of the visual channel, and the officer's analytical mind began to work out the possibility of a computer system error. Having created more than one machine himself, he was aware that anything was possible, despite 30 levels of verification. They report to him that a system error has been ruled out, but he does not believe in the logic of launching a single rocket. And at his own peril and risk he picks up the phone to report to his superiors: “False information.” Despite the instructions, the officer takes responsibility. Since then, for the whole world, Stanislav Petrov is the man who prevented world war.

The danger is over

Today, a retired lieutenant colonel living in the town of Fryazino near Moscow is asked many questions, one of which is always about how much he believed in his own decision and when he realized that the worst was behind him. Stanislav Petrov answers honestly: “The chances were fifty-fifty.” The most serious test is the minute-by-minute repetition of the early warning signal, which announced the launch of the next missile. There were five of them in total. But he stubbornly waited for information from the visual channel, and the radars could not detect thermal radiation. Never before has the world been so close to disaster as in 1983. The events of the terrible night showed how important the human factor is: one wrong decision, and everything can turn to dust.

Only after 23 minutes the lieutenant colonel was able to exhale freely, having received confirmation that the decision was correct. Today one question torments him: “What would have happened if that night he had not replaced his sick partner and in his place was not an engineer, but a military commander, accustomed to obeying instructions?”

After the night incident

The next morning commissions began working at the control point. After a while, the reason for the false alarm of the early warning sensors will be found: the optics reacted to sunlight reflected by clouds. A huge number of scientists, including honored academicians, developed a computer system. To admit that Stanislav Petrov did the right thing and showed heroism means to undo the work of an entire team of the best minds in the country who demand punishment for poor quality work. Therefore, at first the officer was promised a reward, but then they changed their mind. They realized that by starting to think and make decisions, he violated the charter. Instead of a reward, there was a scolding.

The lieutenant colonel had to make excuses to the air defense commander Yu. Votintsev for the unfilled combat log. No one wanted to admit the stress experienced by the operational duty officer, who in a few moments realized the fragility of the world.

Dismissal from the army

Stanislav Petrov, the man who prevented world war, decided to leave the army by submitting his resignation. After spending several months in hospitals, he settled in a small apartment received from the military department in Fryazino near Moscow, receiving a telephone without waiting in line. The decision was difficult, but the main reason was the illness of his wife, who passed away a few years later, leaving her husband with a son and daughter. It was a difficult period in the life of the former officer, who fully realized what loneliness was.

In the nineties, the former commander of missile and space defense, Yuri Votintsev, the incident at the Serpukhov-15 command post was declassified and made public, which made Lieutenant Colonel Petrov a famous person not only in his homeland, but also abroad.

Recognition in the West

The very situation in which a soldier in the Soviet Union did not trust the system, influencing the further development of events, shocked the Western world. The Association of World Citizens at the United Nations decided to award the hero. In January 2006, Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov was presented with an award - a crystal figurine: “The man who prevented a nuclear war.” In 2012, the German media awarded him a prize, and two years later the organizing committee in Dresden awarded him 25 thousand euros for preventing armed conflict.

During the presentation of the first award, the Americans began to initiate the creation of a documentary film about the Soviet officer. Stanislav Petrov himself starred in the title role. The process dragged on for many years due to lack of funds. The film was released in 2014, causing a mixed reaction in the country.

American PR

The Russian state's official version of the events of 1983 was expressed in documents submitted to the UN. It follows from them that the SA lieutenant colonel did not save the world alone. For the Serpukhov-15 command post is not the only facility that monitors missile launches.

On the forums there is a discussion of the events of 1983, where professionals express their opinion about a kind of PR inflated by the Americans to take control of the entire nuclear potential of the country. Many question the awards, which, in their opinion, were given to Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov, absolutely undeservedly.

But there are also those who consider the actions of Lieutenant Colonel Petrov to be unappreciated by their own country.

Quoted by Kevin Costner

In the 2014 film, the Hollywood star meets the main character and becomes so imbued with his fate that he gives a speech to the film crew, which cannot leave anyone indifferent. He admitted that he only plays those who are better and stronger than him, but the real heroes are people like Lieutenant Colonel Petrov, who made a decision that influenced the life of every person in the whole world. By choosing not to retaliate by launching missiles towards the United States when the system reported an attack, he saved the lives of many people who are now bound forever by this decision.

MOSCOW, September 21 – RIA Novosti. Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, who recognized an erroneous signal about an American nuclear missile strike on September 26, 1983 and prevented the launch of missiles against targets in the United States, received a scolding from his superiors instead of encouragement and was forced to resign from military service, the scientific director of the Russian military told RIA Novosti on Thursday -Historical Society (RVIO) Mikhail Myagkov.

Sun ray like a rocket

Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov was born on September 7, 1939 in Vladivostok. Graduated from the Kiev Higher Engineering Radio Engineering School. In 1972, he was sent to serve at the Serpukhov-15 command post near Moscow. His responsibilities included monitoring the proper functioning of spacecraft in the missile attack warning system.

On the night of September 26, 1983, he was at the operational duty post of the system. On the computer of the information processing center, a message appeared from a satellite with a high degree of reliability about the launch of five nuclear-equipped intercontinental ballistic missiles from US territory.

“Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, who was on duty at that time, was in a state where the fate of the whole world could depend on the decision of one person, had he made a decision that was laid down according to the rules. He had to notify his command, then the Soviet leadership was notified and the retaliatory strike system was put into action ", said Myagkov, noting that, having engineering knowledge and an analytical mind, Petrov was able to calculate that the Americans launched the missile from one point - this could not happen in the event of a massive strike.

“He began to doubt, and, in the end, made the right decision that this was a system error. As it turned out later, the sun’s rays, reflecting from the clouds, illuminated the Soviet detection sensors,” said the scientific director of the Russian Military Research Institute.

The agency's interlocutor noted that the lieutenant colonel's commanders did not appreciate his contribution to strengthening peace.

“Stanislav Petrov then received a scolding from his superiors, was forced to resign, was in the hospital. And international awards found him later. But this is, indeed, a unique case when we were on the verge of a disaster due to an error made by technology, but it was the human factor that was able to save us, our country, and the whole world from a nuclear disaster,” Myagkov said.

Awarded abroad

Due to the secrecy regime, Petrov’s act became known only in 1993. In 2006, at the UN headquarters in New York, he received an award from the public organization "Association of World Citizens" with the engraving "To the person who prevented nuclear war." In 2012, in Baden-Baden, Germany, Petrov was awarded the German Media Prize. In 2013, he was awarded the Dresden Prize for the Prevention of Conflict and Violence in Germany.

Petrov died on May 19, 2017 in the Moscow region, which became known only in September 2017.

The USSR was forced to answer

Myagkov believes that there probably would not have been such a fierce confrontation, and such risks, if the United States had not pursued a policy of dragging the Soviet Union into the arms race and had not escalated conflicts related to nuclear weapons to the limit.

“The Soviet Union was forced to respond,” he emphasized, adding that the Cold War was a confrontation between two blocs, the Soviet and the Western, which used all resources to acquire geopolitical, ideological and economic superiority in the world.

“In my opinion, the source of the Cold War was the results of World War II. Here the main responsibility lies with the United States, because it was they who became the first owners of nuclear weapons, used them in Japan and, since the end of 1945, developed a plan for a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. Of course, The nuclear factor played a key role in the Cold War,” Myagkov noted.

According to him, by the early 1960s, the USSR had an order of magnitude fewer nuclear warheads and was at a disadvantage, which prompted the Soviet leadership to take tough economic measures in order to increase its military, primarily nuclear, potential.

“However, during the Cold War there were a number of crisis moments that we are studying today and drawing conclusions in order to prevent such a confrontation from happening again, when the world stood on the brink of a nuclear disaster and could turn to ashes. This is the period of the Korean War, when the United States prevailed above us in terms of the number of nuclear weapons, this is the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when all that was left before the war was literally to lend a hand. In both cases, a large share of the responsibility lies with the United States," said the scientific director of the Russian Military Research Institute.

Lesson for America

According to Myagkov, “Americans must draw conclusions from this situation.”

“After all, both the USSR at that time and today’s Russia are ready to deliver a retaliatory nuclear strike in the event of an attack. Let’s ask ourselves, could there be such people (like Lieutenant Colonel Petrov - ed.) in American headquarters and in American technical missile detection points? This is also an important lesson not only for us, but also for them,” said RIA Novosti’s interlocutor.

Answering a question about the possibility of perpetuating the memory of Petrov in Russia, he said that “the Russian Military Historical Society is ready to consider such an initiative.”

30 years ago, humanity could have disappeared if not for this man from Fryazino:

In the photo, Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov (born 1939) is a Soviet officer, retired lieutenant colonel.

Wikipedia gives fairly dry facts about the events of 30 years ago. I found a good description of those events at wildmale :
“On the night of September 26, 1983, the country was asleep. The world was alarmed, the Cold War had reached its climax, two weeks ago a South Korean passenger Boeing was shot down, accidentally violating the border of the USSR. America and the entire “progressive” world were angry at the “evil empire” .

And suddenly. At the Serpukhov-15 command post, the latest space-based missile detection system detects the launch of several intercontinental ballistic missiles from US territory aimed at Russia.
“The siren at the checkpoint is roaring with all its might, the red letters are blazing. The shock, of course, is colossal,” Petrov later said. “Everyone jumped up from behind the consoles, looking at me. What am I doing? Everything is according to the instructions for operational duty officers, which I wrote myself. We did everything that was necessary. We double-checked the functioning of all systems. Thirty levels of verification, one after another. Reports are coming: everything matches, the probability is two. Highest."
Petrov knew that he had to immediately report the situation to the highest leadership of the country, at that time Andropov. I understood that with a 99.9% probability, Andropov, who was not prone to reflection, would give the order for a large-scale retaliatory strike.
Seconds are ticking by. EVERYONE IS LOOKING AT PETROV.
“You can’t really analyze anything in those two or three minutes,” says Petrov many years later. “What remains is intuition. I had two arguments. Firstly, missile attacks do not start from one base, they take off from all of them at once. Secondly, a computer, by definition, is a fool. You never know what it might mistake for a launch."
Later, American journalists inquired from which exact base the Russian satellite detected the missile launch: “What difference does it make to you? There would be no America anyway,” Petrov replied.
Relying on intuition, Petrov took the future fate of the world under his own responsibility, turned off the alarm and recorded the start of the super-sophisticated system as a “false positive.”
It soon became clear that he was right. The missile detection system responded to the sun's reflections from high clouds, mistaking them for the fiery trail of a missile.

The next day, Serpukhov-15 was full of commissions. In the heat of the moment, Petrov was promised numerous awards, but they soon realized it - after all, he violated the regulations, being a cog, he began to think and make decisions. Besides, I didn’t fill out the combat log on time.
Yuri Votintsev, then commander of the USSR's missile and space defense, interrogated Petrov. “He asks why your combat log was not filled out at that time?” - recalls Petrov. “I explain to him that in one hand I had a receiver, through which I reported the situation, in the other, a microphone, which amplified my commands for my subordinates. There was nothing to write about. But he doesn’t let up: “Why didn’t he fill it out later, when the alarm was over?”
In short, Petrov did not receive any reward for preventing World War 3. Got a scolding. What Petrov understands:
- If you reward me for this incident, then someone must have suffered very greatly for it. First of all, those who developed the early warning system. Great academics who were allocated huge billions. It’s also good that I didn’t completely ruin the magazine.

The story was kept secret. For many years, even his wife did not know that Petrov, whom she habitually nagged for unclosed pasta and scattered socks, had once saved the world.
Declassified in 1998.
Petrov remained a lieutenant colonel and soon after that story he resigned - saving the world a second time was too much even for him.
In our country, this story is not advertised for many reasons (including: violation of military regulations, failure of the space system).
I accidentally found an article about Petrov on the English-language Wikipedia and used English-language sources.

In 2006, at the UN headquarters in New York, Petrov was presented with a baseball cap and a figurine of “Hand Holding the Globe” with the engraved inscription: “To the man who prevented a nuclear war.”
It is still gathering dust next to Soviet crystal and herring racks in the sideboard of a modest panel in Fryazino, where retired lieutenant colonel Petrov now lives.
Stanislav Evgrafovich, you are a holy man. Thank you."

For this incident, he received severe stress, several months in hospitals, dismissal from the army, an apartment on the outskirts of Fryazino near Moscow and a telephone without a queue.

However, the world understands and knows about him, although they mainly give figurines:
1. On January 19, 2006 in New York at the UN headquarters, Stanislav Petrov was presented with a special award from the international public organization “Association of World Citizens”. It is a crystal figurine of “Hand Holding the Globe” with the inscription “To the Man Who Prevented Nuclear War” engraved on it.
2. On February 24, 2012 in Baden-Baden, Stanislav Petrov was awarded the German Media Prize for 2011.
3. On February 17, 2013, he became a laureate of the Dresden Prize, awarded for the prevention of armed conflicts. (€ 25.000)

An interview with Petrov appeared on the BBC today. This is what he looks like now.