Stanislav Petrov was born on September 7, 1939 in Vlakivostok, Russia. His family is military – his father was a fighter pilot from World War II and his mother was a nurse.
On September 26, 1983, a serious nuclear crisis occurred in the middle of the Cold War. The satellite system reports that five U.S. nuclear missiles are heading toward the Soviet Union. Stanislav Petrov, the new Soviet early warning system for the officers in charge of the command center, named Oko, is in a narrow position. The alarm rang, and he held the phone in one hand and the other on the intercom, staring at the screen, while everyone around him was anxious about why he wasn’t responding faster.
Petrov’s training and intuition told him that if the United States was really attacking, the United States would not launch a few missiles. Instead, he believed in his intestines and determined that it was a false alarm. Fortunately, he was right. Those “missiles” are just clouds that are misread by the system. His decision may have saved millions of lives that day. In this case, the Soviet strategy would be to launch a large pile of nuclear weapons as a counterattack without wasting any time, which in turn would trigger a full-scale nuclear war.
So, who is Stanislav Petrov?
Stanislav Petrov was born on September 7, 1939 in Vladivostok, Russia, from a military background – his father was a fighter pilot from World War II and his mother was a nurse. After completing his studies at the Kiev Advanced Engineering Radio Technical College, Petrov joined the Soviet Air Force Defense Force in 1972 and went to the colonel as an engineer.
Petrov learns all about data and warning systems that should have detected ballistic attacks from U.S. and NATO allies in his role. Surprisingly, the Soviet Union did not punish him for his quick decision, nor did it formally recognize him. The entire incident was classified for a long time until later, Petrov’s key role in averting nuclear disaster was not recognized.
