Petrov saved the world from nuclear war. Stanislav Petrov: the man who prevented a nuclear conflict
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 analyst engineer, he worked as an operational duty officer at the Serpukhov-15 command post, located 100 km from Moscow. At that time, the Cold War was 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 US attack was reported due to a false alarm of a missile attack warning system. 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 another duty at the Serpukhov-15 checkpoint, where missile launch was monitored. On the night of September 26, the country slept peacefully. At 0:15 am, the early warning siren blared loudly, highlighting the frightening word "Start" on the banner. Behind him appeared: "The first rocket has launched, the reliability is the highest." It was about a nuclear strike from one of the American bases. There is no time limit for how long a commander should think, but what happened in his head during the next moments is scary to think about. For according to the protocol, he was immediately obliged to report on the launch of a nuclear missile by the enemy.
There is no confirmation of the visual channel, and the analytical mind of the officer began to work out a version of the computer system's error. Having created more than one machine himself, he was aware that anything is possible, despite 30 levels of verification. He is told 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." Regardless of the instructions, the officer takes responsibility. Since then, for the whole world, Stanislav Petrov is the man who prevented the world war.
Today, a retired lieutenant colonel living in the city 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 over. Stanislav Petrov answers honestly: "The chances were fifty-fifty." The most serious test is the minute-by-minute repetition of the early warning signal that announced the launch of another missile. There were five 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 as close to disaster as in 1983. Developments terrible night showed how important human factor: one wrong decision and everything can turn to dust.
Only after 23 minutes, the lieutenant colonel was able to exhale freely, having received confirmation of the correctness of the decision. Today, one question torments him himself: “What would happen if that night he did not replace his sick partner and in his place was not an engineer, but a military commander who was used to obeying instructions?” The next morning, commissions began to work at the CP. After a while, the reason for the false alarm of early warning sensors will be found: the optics reacted to sunlight reflected by clouds. Great amount scientists, including honored academicians, developed a computer system.
To admit that Stanislav Petrov did the right thing and showed heroism means to cancel the work of a whole team of the country's best minds, demanding punishment for poor-quality work. Therefore, at first the officer was promised a reward, and then they changed their minds. The lieutenant colonel had to justify himself to the air defense commander Yuri Votintsev for an unfilled combat log. After some time, he decided to retire from the army, resigning.
After spending several months in hospitals, he settled in a small apartment received from the military department in Fryazino near Moscow, having received 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 son and daughter to her husband. It was a difficult period in the life of a former officer who fully realized what loneliness is.
In the nineties, the former commander of anti-missile and anti-space defense, Yuri Votintsev, the case at the Serpukhov-15 command post was declassified and made public, which made Lieutenant Colonel Petrov famous person not only at home, but also abroad. The very situation in which a soldier in the Soviet Union did not believe the system, influencing further development events shocked the Western world.
The "Association of Citizens of the World" at the United Nations decided to reward the hero. In January 2006, Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov was awarded an award - a crystal figurine: "The man who prevented a nuclear war." In 2012 German funds mass media gave him a prize, and two years later the organizing committee in Dresden awarded 25,000 euros for the prevention of armed conflict.
During the presentation of the first award, the Americans began to initiate the creation of a documentary film about a Soviet officer. AT leading role starred Stanislav Petrov himself. The process dragged on for many years due to lack of funds. The picture was released in 2014, causing a mixed reaction in the country. In Russia documentary released only in 2018.
In the 2014 film, Hollywood star Kevin Costner meets the main character and is so imbued with his fate that he makes 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 affected the life of every person around the world. By choosing not to fire missiles back at the United States in response to the system's message about the attack, it saved the lives of many people, now forever bound by this decision.
Stanislav Petrov is a Russian officer who prevented a nuclear war.
To make a fateful decision in a matter of minutes, when the fate of Mankind depends on one word, is a real feat. Such a feat was accomplished Russian officer Stanislav Petrov on the night of September 26, 1983. He was on duty in the secret part of Serpukhov-15, where US actions were monitored. Suddenly, information appeared on the scoreboard that America had launched several ballistic missiles, the purpose of which is the territory of the USSR ...
Stanislav Petrov. year 2013.
It is difficult to overestimate the responsibility that lay on the workers of the Serpukhov-15 unit in the 1980s. The likelihood of an attack on the USSR by the United States was greater than ever: President Ronald Reagan openly condemned the Soviet Union for shooting down Far East South Korean passenger Boeing 747. The nuclear briefcase was at the ready of the heads of both states, the "cold war" was in full swing.
Stanislav Petrov. year 2013.
For a long time, Stanislav Petrov did not tell anyone, even his own wife, about what happened on the night of September 26. Information about his feat was made public 10 years later at the initiative of German journalists who became interested in a short note about Petrov, the man who prevented a nuclear war and saved Mankind. The note was published in a regional German newspaper, it was reported that Stanislav Petrov lives practically in poverty and needs support.
High awards of Stanislav Petrov.
Already during the first conversation between journalists and Stanislav, it became clear that he was ready to talk about what happened, explain how he made a fateful decision, what considerations he was guided by and how he assessed his responsibility. According to Stanislav Petrov, that night he saw on the remote control a message about the launch of the first rocket from the United States, soon followed by data on other missiles. At first glance, it was obvious that America had started a war against the Soviet Union. The instructions instructed Stanislav to immediately inform Andropov about this, and he should already have pressed the button to launch the rockets in response. In fact, this meant the beginning of the Third World War, the death of millions of people, the death of hundreds of cities.
Award ceremony.
Stanislav Petrov worked in Serpukhov-15 not just as a duty officer, but as a chief analyst. On duty at the console stood up several times a month. It remains only to thank fate that the incident occurred on his shift. Knowing perfectly well how the device works, and also realizing that it is pointless to start shelling from one base, he reported by internal telephone that there had been a malfunction in the system, and the information was false. He had no more than 10-15 minutes to make this decision. If he had not done this, the “reciprocal” missile would have flown towards the United States already half an hour later.
Stanislav Petrov during a public speech.
Stanislav could not explain his decision otherwise than by intuition. He took responsibility for what was happening, and the subsequent examination indeed confirmed that he was right. The alarm was triggered due to the fact that the sensors located on the satellite were illuminated by the sun's rays reflected from the clouds. The attack did not occur, although the system issued the highest degree of danger.
Information about the incident was not disclosed for a long time, and Stanislav Petrov himself was completely remarked that in the current situation he did not fill out the combat log. They did not dare to reward him for non-compliance with the official instructions.
Awards found the hero much later. Petrov's feat was talked about at the UN: in 2006, at the New York headquarters, he was awarded the "Man who prevented a nuclear war" award, he was awarded prizes in Baden-Baden and Dresden.
Stanislav Petrov is a Soviet officer who prevented World War III.
Stanislav Petrov was never arrogant, led a quiet life, took care of his wife who had cancer for many years, helped children, was never rich, but resisted cash prizes. He left Serpukhov-15 shortly after that ill-fated night, the work was too intense and required a constant 100% return, in the 1990s he even worked as a simple security guard at a construction site.
Stanislav's life was cut short on May 19, 2017, he died at his home in Fryazino, where he lived all his life. Not a single media wrote about his death. It became known about the incident 4 months later, when friends began to call Stanislav to congratulate him on his birthday, but they heard terrible news from his son that Stanislav Petrov had died. So ended life path the man who saved the whole world.
Portrait of Stanislav Petrov in his youth.
In recent months, Russian-American relations have sharply deteriorated. Political scientists argue, as a reality, about the possibility of a nuclear conflict between the powers. Forgetting how much in a hot atmosphere depends even on a random spark...
September 25, 1983. "Special Zone"
At the Center for Observation of heavenly bodies in fact, no one was watching the heavenly bodies. Under the sign of the Center, behind a reinforced concrete fence with barbed wire and armed soldiers at the checkpoint, one of the most secret objects of the USSR Ministry of Defense was hiding. It was here that, figuratively speaking, the keen eyes of the country's armed forces were located, watching the territory of the United States and the adjacent waters of the World Ocean around the clock with only one goal: to detect the launch of a ballistic missile in time.
The center began to be built in the early seventies, and was put on combat duty only ten years later. And this is not surprising. Indeed, in addition to a military camp with schools, shops and residential buildings for officers, the expensive project provided for the creation of the so-called "special zone", the existence of which the civilian inhabitants of the town guessed from a huge white ball that towered over the forest like a monstrous champignon.
And only the military knew for sure that the "zone" was connected with Moscow by a special coded connection, and a 30-meter locator hidden under the "mushroom" - with an orbital space constellation of spy satellites; that the launch of any American missile will be recorded already at the start and at the same instant the luminous "tail" from the nozzle will be seen on the monitors of the command post near Moscow; that the giant M-10 computer will process the information coming from the satellites in a fraction of a second, determine the launch site, indicate the class of the rocket, its speed and coordinates.
If a nuclear war happens, the first to know about it in the "special zone".
September 25th. combat crew
That evening, forty-four-year-old lieutenant colonel Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov, grabbing a stack of sandwiches, a fragrant crumble of tea leaves and a bag of yellow sugar - provisions in case of night duty, went out of the entrance of house No. 18 on Tsiolkovsky Street and, holding his cap in his hand, ran to the bus stop, where a tattered service "groove" puffed sullenly. At home, the lieutenant colonel left a sick wife and two children.
The bus was shaking for a long time along the curly "concrete" until the only stop - the "special zone". The entire combat crew was gradually pulled up here - almost a hundred people, half of which were officers. At 20.00, strictly according to the schedule, the combat crew lined up near the flagpole, on top of which a red banner fluttered. Petrov checked the presence of people and, as expected, in his non-commanding voice said:
"I order you to take up combat duty for the protection and defense of the air borders of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."
Fifty meters running to the glass doors of the command post, several flights of stairs, and now he is already at the Central Command Post. Everything is as usual here: dead calm. The indication lamps blink, the screens of video monitoring devices (VKU) flicker, special communications phones are silent, and behind the thick display glass, two electronic maps ghostly glow with a greenish light behind the entire wall of the operational hall: the USSR and the USA - the fields of future nuclear battles.
From time to time, when combat exercises were held at the command post and the developers ran various versions of simulation programs through the M-10, Petrov watched the future war, as they say, live. Then on the American map the launch site of a ballistic missile was highlighted, and a bright "tail" from its nozzle flashed on the VKU screen. In these moments, the lieutenant colonel tried to imagine what would happen if this actually happened. And he immediately realized that any thoughts on this matter were meaningless: if a global nuclear mess began, he would have a couple of minutes left to issue the necessary commands, and even a minute to smoke his last cigarette.
As long as the new combat crew replaced the previous one, or, to use the slang of the TsKP, was “sewn in” to work, Petrov and his assistant bungled a strong seagull on the electric stove and settled comfortably in their command chairs. About two hours remained before the next satellite entered the working area.
September 25th. Starting a session
At that time, we had an orbital constellation deployed in space spacecraft. Satellites circle in space like a carousel and follow everything that happens in the territory of the United States of America, which we at that time called the "missile hazardous area." Then the Americans had nine bases that housed ballistic missiles. These are the bases we followed.
Most often, the Americans launched their missiles from the Eastern and Western ranges. "Tridents" and "Minutemen" were fired from the West into the water area Pacific Ocean. And rocket carriers were launched from Vostochny. The eastern test site is near Cape Canaveral, so, quite naturally, we tracked spacecraft launches as well. I must say, you can’t confuse a rocket launch with anything. Lights up first bright dot at the start, it grows, lengthens, and then such a squiggle goes beyond the "top" of the Earth. During my service at the facility, I saw such "squiggles" dozens, or even hundreds of times - you can't confuse them with anything.
The work is, in general, dreary. The satellite passes the working area in six hours. Then it is replaced by the next one. So we just have to correctly coordinate the spacecraft in orbit. Then you get bored again. Even tedious. You listen to how the operators are talking, and sometimes you read a book - that's all the entertainment. By the way, that day I happened to be on duty at the Central Control Center by accident. Changed a friend.
Somewhere out there, at an altitude of 38,000 kilometers, the Soviet satellite Cosmos-1382 slowly sailed to the place where it would be reliably picked up by the invisible tentacles of a giant locator. A moment before the start of the telemetry session, Lieutenant Colonel Petrov glanced at the VKU monitor. Half of the "hump" was still brightly lit by the sun. Night dominated the other. Between them is the terminator line. It was this line that most often caused trouble to the operational duty officers of the Central Control Center. It was on it that the computer most often crashed. And not only because at the border of night and day the launch of a rocket is barely noticeable, but also because the very system of warning about the launch of ballistic missiles, despite the fact that thousands of specialists in secret Soviet design bureaus worked on its creation, was still crude. . The Americans put their warning system on alert much earlier. We were in a hurry...
Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov:
On July 13, 1983, scheduled maintenance work was carried out at the TsKP. On a special computer, disconnected from all notified objects, we spent the whole day running one combat program through simulation systems and, in the end, even prepared an act of acceptance of this program with the modifications made. But when they tried to run the program through the working computer, due to a malfunction in one of the blocks of the exchange system, the machine gave false information about the mass launch of ballistic missiles. The chief of staff of the army, General Zavaliy, gave a verbal order to remove all developments from service. The developers, and they are civilians, categorically refused to obey the general's order and left the facility. Then the military removed these developments with their own hands. I think this incident was directly related to what happened here in September.
September 25th. Launch of the Minuteman
Flywheels of rotary mechanisms rumbled on the roof of the command post, and the three-hundred-ton radar deployed its steel "saucer" with such force that the command post building shuddered quite distinctly. "One hundred and one. This is one hundred and two," the voice of the chief control operator was heard in the intercom speakers, "functional control and telemetry are in order, the antenna has been removed, trajectory measurements have been taken. The equipment is working normally."
This means that "Kosmos-1382" has successfully reached the working stage.
"One hundred and two, one hundred and three. The one hundred and first is speaking. - Now Petrov was also giving orders to the chief intelligence operator. - One thousand three hundred and eighty-second apparatus is working properly. Start processing information."
The lieutenant colonel leaned back in his chair, peacefully closed his eyelids. Until five in the morning you can relax.
The deafening ringing of the buzzer ripped through the drowsy silence of the CKP. Petrov glanced at the remote control, and his heart nearly shattered from the deafening dose of adrenaline. A red spot pulsated evenly in front of his eyes. Like a naked heart. And one word: "Start". And this could mean only one thing: there, at the other end of the Earth, the cast-iron doors of the mine opened, and the American ballistic missile, spewing clubs of spent fuel and fire, rushed into the sky, towards the USSR.
It was not a training, but a combat alert.
Through the window glass of the Central Control Center, the lieutenant colonel now also saw an electronic map of America. The impassive M-10, in soft green computer-generated handwriting, confirmed the launch of a Minuteman-class nuclear-tipped ballistic missile from a military base on the US West Coast.
"She's going to fly for about forty minutes," Petrov involuntarily flashed through his head. "All combat crew," he shouted into the microphone in the next instant, "check and report on the functioning of the means and combat programs. One hundred and third! Report the presence of a target in the visual direction!"
Only now did he glance at the VKU monitor. Everything is clear. No "tails". An infection, maybe the terminator line overlaps it?
“One hundred and one, one hundred and one!” the speakers yelled. “This is one hundred and two. Ground facilities, space vehicles and combat programs are functioning normally.” "One hundred and one. Says one hundred and third," was heard next, "the target was not detected by visual means." "Understood you," Petrov replied.
Now, despite the prohibitions, he mortally wanted to swear directly on the air. Why can't he see the rocket? Why does the computer announce the start if all systems are working properly? Why? But there was no time for rhetorical questions. He knew that information about the launch of the Minuteman was automatically sent to the command post of the missile attack warning system. The operational duty officer of the SPRN KP (missile attack warning system) already knew about the launch of the Minuteman. "I see," he shouts, "I see everything! Let's keep working!"
Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov:
And then - a new flash, a new start. And we have this: if the system detects one rocket launch, the machine qualifies it as a "start", and if more, then as a "nuclear missile attack." "It sucks, I think, it sucks."
September 25th. Third run, fourth!
In fact, if the missile really flies to the Union, the presence of the target will immediately be confirmed by over-horizontal and trans-horizontal detection means, after that the SPRN command post will automatically transmit information to the notified objects, and the red displays will light up in the Secretary General's "nuclear briefcase", on the minister's "crocuses" defense, chief General Staff commanders of military branches. Immediately after that, the operators will launch the gyroscopes of Soviet ballistic missiles, waiting for the decision of the country's top military and political leadership to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike. As soon as this decision is made, Commander-in-Chief missile troops via an automatic communication system with the troops, it will transmit a coded version of a retaliatory strike and a cipher to unlock the missile launchers, and the commanders of combat complexes will only have two keys to simultaneously open the safes with punched cards of programs, enter them into the computer of ballistic weapons and press the start button.
And then a nuclear war will begin. In just forty minutes.
Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov:
A few moments pass, and then the third launch. And after him - the fourth. It all happened so fast that I didn't even realize what had happened. I scream: "Yo-my, I can't!" The operational duty officer at the command post of the early warning system - such a glorious man - reassures me. "Work, - shouts, - calmly work!" What a calm place. I look into the hall. The combat crew transmits information, and they themselves turned around and looked in my direction. To be honest, in those seconds, the information of the “visualists”, ordinary soldiers who sit in front of screens in dark rooms for hours, turned out to be decisive. They did not see the launch of American missiles. I didn't see them on my screen either. It became clear that this is a "liar". I shout to the operational duty officer: "We are giving out false information! We are giving out false information!" But the information has already gone.
September 26th. "Lozhnyak"
“At night, my apartment on Universitetsky Prospekt received a call from the command post and was informed that an emergency had occurred at the facility, the system gave out false information,” recalled retired Colonel-General Yuri Vsevolodovich Votintsev in a conversation with me. "I immediately called an official car and drove to the place. The road took about an hour and a half. In the morning, after the preliminary investigation, I reported everything to the commander-in-chief. The commander-in-chief reported about the state of emergency to Ustinov orally, and I dictated to the Minister of Defense the following code:
"On September 26, 1983, at 00:15, due to a malfunction in the computer program on board the spacecraft, false information was generated about the launch of ballistic missiles from the United States. The on-site investigation is being conducted by Votintsev and Savin."
Almost immediately it became clear that the reason was a computer failure. But not only. As a result of the investigation, we brought to light a whole bunch of shortcomings in the space warning system for the launch of ballistic missiles. The main problems were in the combat program and the imperfection of the spacecraft. And this is the basis of the whole system. All these shortcomings were eliminated only by 1985, when the system was finally put on combat duty.
In fairness, it must be said that similar emergencies at different times happened to a potential adversary. According to the Soviet military intelligence(GRU), American warning systems gave out "false" much more often than ours, and the consequences of them turned out to be more tangible. In one case, alerted US Navy bombers with nuclear weapons on board even reached North Pole to deliver a massive blow to the territory of the USSR. In another, the Americans, mistaking migration for Soviet missiles flocks of birds, put their ballistic missiles on alert. But neither we nor them, fortunately, got to the start button. The competition of high technologies either brought the two superpowers closer to the fatal line, then again separated them to a safe distance.
And if not "false"? I asked Colonel General Votintsev. - If that night the Americans really started a nuclear war?
We would have had time to strike back, - he answered, - both at the American mines and at their cities. However, Moscow would be doomed. The capital's missile defense system was inactive from 1977 to 1990 - almost thirteen years. All this time, at the starting positions, instead of anti-missiles, at an angle of sixty degrees, there were refueling complexes - transport-loading containers with dummies. And instead of fuel and nuclear warheads, they were filled with ordinary sand ...
Testament of Lieutenant Colonel Petrov
The last time we met with Stanislav Evgrafovich Petrov was in 1991. On the September night, the command did not notice his feat. As a result of the official investigation, Petrov was not punished, but he was not awarded either. The lieutenant colonel lived on the very edge of the city of Fryazino, in a small apartment with his son and infirm wife. Recently I knocked out my phone, I almost cried with joy ...
After my first publication, a lot has changed in his life. Petrov began to be invited to the West on paid trips, they were awarded prizes and awards. Danish cinematographers Jacob Staberg and Peter Anthony made a feature film "The Man Who Saved the World" starring Kevin Köstner. At a Hollywood party in New York, Kevin introduced him to Robert De Niro and Matt Damon...
While preparing this material for Rodina, I tried to find traces of the officer. But neither in his native Fryazino, nor in the district military registration and enlistment office, nor in the local administration, nor in the council of veterans, did anyone even remember this surname. And when, finally, I found his phone through colleagues from " Komsomolskaya Pravda"The phone was not answered.
A month later, the phone answered in a sad voice: "Daddy died last week."
We met with Dmitry Stanislavovich Petrov all in the same, now completely murdered apartment, where I talked with his father 26 years ago, in the same kitchen overlooking the end of summer. My son told me about his father's death. Petrov underwent an emergency operation on the intestines, but the four-hour anesthesia completely upset his nervous and spiritual system. He raved, battled visions, fell into a trance.
Dmitry took a vacation and took care of his infirm father for a month, spoon-fed baby food ...
The man who saved the world died alone. Without confession and communion, without faith, and even without a son who left for work that day. He died quietly and unnoticed by the world he saved. They also buried him. In the distant grave of the city cemetery. Without military bands and farewell fireworks.
His words, which I wrote down many years ago, sound today like a testament to all on whom peace on Earth depends:
After that story in September 1983, I began to look at my service with slightly different eyes. On the one hand, there is a combat program, on the other, a person. But not a single combat program can replace your brain, eyes, and finally, just intuition. And at the same time, does a person have the right to independently make a decision, on which, perhaps, the fate of our planet depends?
In the next few minutes, five more rockets appeared on the computer screen. At this time, the Cold War was at its peak - three and a half weeks before that, a South Korean Boeing 747 had been 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, which made the decision to retaliate. The flight time of a ballistic missile from the continental United States to the USSR was about 30 minutes, so Petrov had a very meager choice: either report to the Secretary General, who would have to make a final decision using his nuclear suitcase, or report to his superiors: "We are giving out false information" and be responsible for the consequences. Given that Andropov had only 15 minutes 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 human lives and did not act according to the instructions - he did not press the button, despite the fact that all 30 checks gave a positive result.
Guided by common sense (they say, 5 missiles are too few for the first strike in the war), Petrov decided that the computer had malfunctioned. As a result, this brave man turned out to be 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 readings of the system, which then shocked Petrov and his shift on duty, were caused by a rare but predictable signal reflection effect from the Earth's surface. The reason was the illumination of the satellite sensors by sunlight reflected from high-altitude clouds. Later in space system Changes have been made to avoid such situations.
True, the system failed again in 1995, when the Russians for a short time mistook a scientific missile launched from Norwegian territory for an incoming American nuclear missile. There were cases when launches of meteorological satellites, the rising of the full moon, 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 central control center for the early warning system in Moscow, but they did not manage to build it.
Now the United States and Russia still have thousands of nuclear missiles on full alert aimed at big cities each other. Therefore, there is a possibility that similar false alarms may recur. And this can provoke a real retaliatory strike.
In January 2006, the international public organization "Association of World Citizens" for the prevention nuclear war handed over to retired colonel Stanislav Petrov her prize - the statuette "Hand Holding the Globe".
If there had been another person in the place of Stanislav Petrov, we might no longer exist.
It is not hard to state, 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 ...
MOSCOW, September 21 - RIA Novosti. Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, who on September 26, 1983 recognized the erroneous signal of an American nuclear missile strike and prevented the launch of missiles against targets in the United States, instead of being encouraged, received a scolding from his superiors and was forced to quit his job. military service, Mikhail Myagkov, scientific director of the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO), told RIA Novosti on Thursday.
Officer Petrov received the Dresden Prize for the Prevention of War"The feat of Stanislav Petrov will go down in history as one of the greatest deeds for peace in recent decades," said Heidrun Hannusch, chairman of Friends of Dresden in Germany.Sun beam 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 duties included monitoring the proper functioning of the spacecraft of the missile attack warning system.
On the night of September 26, 1983, he was at the post of operational duty officer of the system. On the computer of the information processing center from the satellite appeared a message with a high degree of certainty about the launch of five nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles from the United States.
"Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, who was on duty at the time, was in a state where the fate of the whole world could depend on the decision of one person, if 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 activated ", - said Myagkov, noting that, having engineering knowledge and analytical mind, Petrov was able to calculate that the Americans launched a missile from one point - this could not happen in the event of a massive strike.
“He began to doubt, and, in the end, he made the right decision that this was a system error. As it turned out later, the sun's rays, reflected from the clouds, lit up the Soviet detection sensors,” said the scientific director of the RVIO.
The interlocutor of the agency noted that the commanders of the lieutenant colonel did not appreciate his contribution to the strengthening of peace.
“Stanislav Petrov then received a scolding from his superiors, was forced to quit, was in the hospital. And international awards found him in the following time. But this, indeed, is the unique case when we were on the verge of disaster due to a mistake made by technology, but it was the human factor that could save us, our country, and the whole world from a nuclear catastrophe," Myagkov said.
Awarded abroad
Because of 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 Citizens of the World" engraved "To the man who prevented nuclear war." In 2012, in Baden-Baden, Germany, Petrov was awarded the German Media Prize. In 2013, in Germany, he was awarded the Dresden Prize for the Prevention of Conflict and Violence.
Petrov died on May 19, 2017 in the Moscow region, which became known only in September 2017.
The USSR was forced to respond
Myagkov believes that there would certainly not have been such a fierce confrontation, and such risks, if the United States had not pursued a policy of drawing the Soviet Union into an arms race, had not aggravated conflicts related to nuclear weapons to the limit.
"The Soviet Union was forced to respond," he stressed, adding that the "cold war" was a confrontation between two blocs, Soviet and Western, which used all resources to acquire geopolitical, ideological and economic superiority in the world.
"In my opinion, the source cold war were the results of World War II. Here the United States bears the main responsibility, because it was they who became the first owners nuclear weapons, used it in Japan and from the end of 1945 developed a plan for delivering a nuclear strike on Soviet Union. Of course, the nuclear factor was in the Cold War key role", - said Myagkov.
According to him, by the beginning of the 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.
“Nevertheless, during the Cold War years, there were a number of crises that we are now studying and drawing conclusions in order to prevent such a confrontation from happening again, when the world was on the verge of a nuclear catastrophe and could turn into 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 before the war it was literally necessary to lend a hand. In both cases, a large share of the responsibility lies with the United States, "said the scientific director of the RVIO.
Lesson for America
According to Myagkov, "the Americans should 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 the question, could there be such people (like Lieutenant Colonel Petrov - ed.) in American headquarters and in American points of technical detection of missiles? This is also an important lesson not only for us, but also for them," the source said.
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."