On September 26, 1983, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov prevented a potential nuclear disaster by doubting a false alarm of a U.S. missile attack. As tensions rise again between Russia and NATO, the world needs more heroes like Petrov.
The Unsung Hero: How Stanislav Petrov Saved the World
The Unsung Hero: How Stanislav Petrov Saved the World
Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov saved the world on September 26, 1983. We need more like him today, as new mistakes could be made amidst the escalating tensions between Russia and NATO.
Poland has grown weary of Russian provocations. Prime Minister Donald Tusk recently threatened to shoot down any "flying objects" violating Polish airspace.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski also stated at a UN Security Council meeting that Russia should not complain if one of their planes is shot down.
Estonia requested the meeting after three Russian MiG 31 jets violated Estonian airspace for twelve minutes last week, an unusually long incursion.
Last week, Russia concluded its military exercise with Belarus, Zapad 2025, which ended with a simulated Russian launch of tactical nuclear weapons.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was present. He regularly practices the steps leading to the launch of Russian nuclear weapons to be psychologically prepared.
This is something Soviet leaders also did. According to Rebekah Koffler, a former employee of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, it's a lesson Moscow learned in 1972 when then-Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev hesitated and trembled during such an exercise.
He reportedly repeatedly asked his Defense Minister Andrei Grechko if it was really just an exercise.
The heightened rhetoric from countries like Poland is likely a necessary stance against Vladimir Putin. Russia respects strength, not weakness.
However, this also increases the risk of mistakes and real confrontations, with escalation that can quickly follow.
Tensions have likely not been this high between Russia and NATO since the fall of 1983, when Soviet leader Yuri Andropov seriously believed NATO was preparing an attack under the guise of a large military exercise, Able Archer 83.
On September 1 that year, the Soviet Union shot down a South Korean passenger plane that had strayed over the Russian island of Sakhalin. 269 people were killed, including about 60 Americans.
In this tense situation, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov was the highest-ranking officer at the Soviet command center monitoring systems that would alert if the U.S. launched a nuclear attack.
I interviewed his son Dmitry in the fall of 2017 in the worn-out apartment outside Moscow he shared with his father. Stanislav had passed away in May that year.
It was a quarter past midnight on September 26 when the alarm sounded. Soviet satellites had detected first one, then two, and finally five American intercontinental missile launches.
It was Stanislav Petrov's duty to contact his superiors. Andropov would then have less than half an hour to decide on a counterattack before the American missiles arrived.
But Petrov hesitated. The Soviet ground radar showed no signs. And if the U.S. had started a nuclear war, why had they only used five missiles?
He drew his own conclusion. The satellites were giving false readings. There was no attack.
So he never contacted his superiors. Andropov was never awakened. The world survived on September 26, 1983.
Stanislav Petrov did not receive much gratitude at home. Initially, he was criticized for not following protocol. He did receive a medal later, but only of the third degree.
Everything was a deeply guarded secret for many years. A Danish documentary made him famous in 2014, and he even met Hollywood stars like Robert De Niro and Kevin Costner (who had read about Petrov during the filming of the movie "13 Days" about the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962).
He himself never cared about the attention. He did not see himself as a hero.
The only Russian leader he met personally was Mikhail Gorbachev. He never received any more Russian honors. Vladimir Putin never reached out, not even after the international attention.
He passed away in May 2017, but it wasn't until September that international media took notice. When I visited the grave in the fall of 2017, there was still no headstone.
Five people attended his funeral.