Over the next few minutes, markers for five more missiles appeared on the computer screen. At this time, the Cold War was at its peak - three and a half weeks earlier, a South Korean Boeing 747 was shot down.
According to the instructions, in the event of a missile attack, the duty officer was obliged to immediately notify the country's leadership, who made the decision on a retaliatory strike. The flight time of a ballistic missile from the continental United States to the USSR was about 30 minutes, so Petrov had a very limited choice: either report to the Secretary General, who would have to make the final decision using his nuclear suitcase, or report to his superiors: “We are giving out false information” and be responsible for the consequences yourself. Considering that Andropov had only 15 minutes left to make a decision, it is safe to say that he would have believed Petrov and pressed the button for a retaliatory nuclear strike. But Petrov did not take responsibility for billions of human lives and did not act according to instructions - he did not press the button, despite the fact that all 30 checks gave positive results.
Guided by common sense (they say, 5 missiles are too few for the first strike in a war), Petrov decided that the computer had malfunctioned. As a result, this brave man was right: there was indeed a failure in the warning system. After a year-long secret investigation into the incident on September 26, 1983, it was concluded that the system readings that shocked Petrov and his duty shift were caused by a rare but predictable effect of signal reflection from the surface of the Earth. The reason was that the satellite sensors were illuminated by sunlight reflected from high-altitude clouds. Later, changes were made to the space system to eliminate such situations.
However, the system failed again in 1995, when the Russians briefly mistook a scientific rocket launched from Norway for an incoming American nuclear missile. There have been cases when launches of meteorological satellites, the rising of the full moon, or flocks of geese were mistaken for a missile attack. They intended to solve the problem of failures in the warning system by deploying a joint early warning control center in Moscow, but they never had time to build it.
Today, the US and Russia still keep thousands of fully operational nuclear missiles aimed at each other's major cities. Therefore, there is a possibility that similar false alarms may occur again. And this could provoke a real retaliatory strike.
In January 2006, the international public organization "Association of World Citizens" for the prevention of nuclear war presented retired Colonel Stanislav Petrov with its prize - the "Hand Holding the Globe" figurine.
If another person had been in Stanislav Petrov’s place, we might no longer exist.
It’s not hard to say, but now Stanislav Petrov lives in a tiny apartment, almost unsociable. He tries not to remember that incident... Maybe the consequences of those checks affected...
On September 26, 1983, Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov was on duty at the Serpukhov-15 command post, 100 km from Moscow. The Cold War was in full swing. Petrov's task was to monitor the sensors of the space early warning system for the launch of nuclear missiles. If the sensors signaled a nuclear attack, Petrov's duty would be to immediately notify the country's leadership, who would decide whether to retaliate.
So, on September 26, the computer notified Petrov about the launch of missiles from an American base. Despite the terrible threat, the lieutenant colonel maintained complete composure. He analyzed the sensor readings and was confused by the fact that the missiles were launched from just one point, and there were only a few missiles themselves. Petrov came to the conclusion that there was a case of system failure and did not notify the high command. As it later turned out, the sensors were illuminated by sunlight reflected from the clouds. This issue has been fixed.
Petrov’s iron self-control may have saved all of our lives, because if a nuclear war had started because of this mistake, the consequences would have been devastating.
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.
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On May 19, 2017, in Fryazino near Moscow, retired Soviet officer Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov, who on the night of September 25-26, 1983, actually prevented a nuclear war that could have started due to a false alarm of a missile attack warning system, passed away. The system reported an attack from the United States. Stanislav Petrov became one of the main heroes of the Cold War, books were written about him and even a documentary film was made, he was awarded at the UN headquarters. At the same time, he himself never considered himself a hero. In an interview with journalists, he said: “Did I save the world? No, what a hero I am!” He called that incident in September 1983 a work episode that was very difficult, but in which he managed to do a good job.
Fast forward to that year 1983. The Cold War is in full swing, and a new round of it is beginning. On March 8, speaking to the National Association of US Evangelicals in Florida, American President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” On April 4, in the area of the Lesser Kuril Ridge, 6 American A7 attack aircraft entered USSR airspace to a depth of 2 to 30 kilometers and carried out a simulated bombing on the territory of Zeleny Island, making several passes to attack ground targets. On September 1 of the same year, a Soviet fighter-interceptor shot down a South Korean passenger Boeing 747; the plane deviated 500 kilometers from its normal flight path, twice violating USSR airspace.
The Cold War could turn into a hot war at any moment; it was in such a situation that on the night of September 25-26, 1983, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov took up combat duty. He was an operational duty officer at the command post of the missile attack warning system in the secret part of Serpukhov-15. For ordinary people, there was a Center for Observing Heavenly Bodies here, but in reality no one here observed the celestial bodies. Under the sign of the center was hidden one of the most secret objects of the Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union. A year earlier, the Oko-1 system, a satellite system for detecting intercontinental ballistic missile launches, had just entered combat duty. This system was part of the space echelon of the missile attack warning system.
At 0 hours 15 minutes at the command post of the missile attack warning system (MAWS) in the secret part of Serpukhov-15, the computer unexpectedly produced information: an intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from US territory - its target was the Soviet Union. As Stanislav Evgrafovich later recalled: “The machine showed that the reliability of the information was the highest.” “The siren screamed like crazy, and the big red letters START appeared on the screen above. This means that the ICBM has definitely worked. I looked down at my crew. At this time, someone even got up from their seats, they began to turn around at me. I had to raise my voice so that everyone would immediately take their positions again. It was necessary to verify the information received. It couldn’t turn out that it was actually a ballistic missile with warheads on board…” noted Petrov.
The existing missile attack warning system made it possible to track other people's launches of ballistic missiles and civilian launch vehicles. The launch was monitored already at the moment the rocket exited the silo. All levels of verification confirmed that the missile was fired. “Actually, what was required from people? The machine gave us all the input, provided the “evidence base,” and the person on duty at the command post, according to the instructions, had to report to the top. The issue of retaliatory launches was already being decided there,” the officer recalled. However, Stanislav Petrov doubted that in a real attack on the USSR, the missiles would have to be launched from several bases at once, and not from one, as the system showed.
All data that was processed by our computer was duplicated to higher authorities. They were surprised: why was there no confirmation from the shift duty officer? A couple of minutes later a bell rang at the checkpoint; they were calling through government communications. Picking up the phone, I reported to the caller on duty: “I am giving you false information.” The duty officer answered briefly: “Got it.” Stanislav Petrov is still grateful to this man who did not escalate the situation, did not break down, but communicated with him clearly, without unnecessary questions or uttered phrases. At that moment it was especially important. At this time, the system notified everyone at the control point about the next launch. Now she noted that the second ballistic missile had launched. The letters “START” lit up again. After this, three more messages followed within three minutes and the inscription “START” changed to the even more ominous “ROCKET ATTACK”.
Minuteman III missile launch
These moments became one of the most difficult not only in Petrov’s officer career, but also in his entire life. In a very limited time, he needed to analyze a large number of different factors, and then try to make the right decision. Making the wrong decision under these conditions threatened to start a real nuclear war, which could put an end to our entire world. Therefore, Lieutenant Colonel Petrov raised awareness of all the services available to him. The visual control specialists who peered into the screens of video control devices - VKU (it is worth noting that the “visual specialists” were ordinary soldiers) did not see anything. The VKU screens were supposed to display a bright “tail” from the nozzle of the launched rocket. Over-horizontal radar specialists also reported that they could not detect supposedly launched missiles.
From the moment the enemy launched a ballistic missile until the decision to carry out a retaliatory launch was made, the USSR leadership had no more than 28 minutes. Personally, Stanislav Petrov had 15 minutes to make the only right decision. He rightly doubted that the United States had decided to launch a nuclear strike on the territory of the USSR - he, like all other officers, was instructed that in a real nuclear attack, missiles would be launched from several bases at once (the Americans then had 9 such bases). Having analyzed all the information received: the fact that the launches were made from one point, only a few ICBMs took off, and also that the “visualists” did not record any traces of missiles, and the supra-horizontal radar did not detect the target, Lieutenant Colonel Petrov decided that the alarm was false. He reported a false alarm from the system up the chain. Later, the commander of the anti-missile and anti-space defense forces, Colonel General Yuri Vsevolodovich Votintsev, arrived at the command post and reported the false alarm of the system to the commander-in-chief and the country's Minister of Defense Dmitry Fedorovich Ustinov.
An investigation carried out after this incident showed that the cause of the system failure was the illumination of the sensors of Soviet satellites by sunlight, which was reflected from high-altitude clouds. As Stanislav Petrov later recalled, at first they wanted to encourage him and even promised to present him for an award, but instead they reprimanded him for an unfilled combat journal. And already in 1984 he resigned, without ever reaching the rank of colonel. Together with his family, he settled in Fryazino, near Moscow, where he received an apartment. Contrary to rumors, this happened for purely personal reasons; Petrov’s wife became seriously ill, which is why he decided to resign from service. At the same time, that September incident in Serpukhov-15 remained a state secret until the early 1990s; even the officer’s wife knew nothing about that duty.
It is worth noting that such cases occurred not only in the USSR. According to Soviet intelligence, American early warning systems for missile attacks also malfunctioned and gave false alarms, bringing humanity closer to a monstrous catastrophe. In one case, the Americans even alerted their strategic bombers, which managed to reach the North Pole, from where they planned to launch a massive missile attack on the territory of the Soviet Union. In another case, the Americans sounded the alarm, mistaking the migration of flocks of birds for Soviet missiles. Fortunately, such cases were recognized in time, so it did not come to the point of launching ballistic missiles in response.
Returning to Stanislav Evgrafovich, it can be noted that real fame came to him after they began to write and film programs about him in Europe and the USA. For example, in September 1998, Karl Schumacher, an undertaker by profession and political activist from the German town of Oberhausen, read a short article in the Bild newspaper that mentioned a Soviet officer. An article in the Bild newspaper said that the man who managed to prevent a nuclear conflict lives in a small apartment in Fryazino, his wife died of cancer, and his pension is not enough to live on. Schumacher himself told reporters about this. Karl Schumacher invited Stanislav Petrov to Germany so that he could personally talk about this episode of the Cold War to local residents. Stanislav responded to the offer and, having arrived in Germany, gave an interview to a local television channel. Several local newspapers also wrote about his arrival.
Thus, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov became known throughout the world. After this trip, all the world's largest media wrote about him, including Spiegel, Die Welt, Die Zeit, Radio1, CBS, Daily Mail and Washington Post. Because of this, the vigil became one of the main symbolic episodes of the Cold War, along with the visit of American girl Samantha Smith to the Soviet Union in 1983 or the negotiations between US President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985-86. Petrov's story was described in some detail in the book "The Dead Hand" by David Hoffman - one of the world's main works about the Cold War period.
The services of the Soviet officer were highly appreciated by the world community. On January 19, 2006, in New York, at the UN headquarters, Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov was presented with a crystal figurine that depicted a hand holding a globe. The inscription on the figurine read: “To the man who prevented nuclear war.” On February 24, 2012, he was awarded the German Media Prize for 2011 in Baden-Baden. And on February 17, 2013, Petrov became a laureate of the Dresden Prize, awarded to people for the prevention of armed conflicts.
In 2014, the documentary-feature film “The Man Who Saved the World” was released. As Stanislav Petrov himself later said in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, actor Kevin Costner, who played one of the main roles in the film, sent him a money transfer in the amount of $500 - in gratitude for the fact that he did not lift into the sky missiles with nuclear warheads on board . It can be noted that Petrov was perhaps even a more famous person in the world than in his native country.
Stanislav Petrov died in his own apartment, where he lived all his life at the age of 77 years. Not a single media outlet wrote about his death at that time; it became known only four months later, when old comrades began calling him to congratulate him on his birthday and heard this terrible thing from his son. As “” wrote already in September 2017, the man who saved the world died alone. This happened quietly and unnoticed by the world he saved. He was buried in the same way: in a distant grave in an ordinary city cemetery, without a farewell salute or the sounds of a military band.
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 off, 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.
19.05.2017
Petrov Stanislav Evgrafovich
Military figure
Retired Lieutenant Colonel
Stanislav Petrov was born on September 7, 1939 in the city of Vladivostok, Primorsky Krai. Graduate of the Kyiv Higher Military Aviation Engineering School. Having received the specialty of an analytical engineer, he worked as an operational duty officer at the Serpukhov-15 command post, located 100 km from Moscow. At that time there was a cold war going on. In 1984 he retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
A Soviet officer who prevented a potential nuclear war on September 26, 1983, when a false missile warning system alerted him to a US attack. On that day, Stanislav Petrov, the operational duty officer of Serpukhov-15, made a decision on which the preservation of peace on Earth largely depended and which prevented an armed conflict.
Being an analytical engineer, he 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. 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 missile. 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.
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. The world has never 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?” 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 distinguished 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. The lieutenant colonel had to make excuses to air defense commander Yuri Votintsev for not filling out the combat log. After some time, he 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. 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. In Russia, the documentary film was released only in 2018.
In the 2014 film, Hollywood star Kevin Costner 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 around the 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.