Russian Officer Saved the World from Nuclear War: Revelations of a Lieutenant Colonel
The Bulgarian newspaper Trud published the revelations of Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, whose ingenuity saved the world from a nuclear war on September 26, 1983.
The Russian officer himself, and many years later, believed that at that moment, which could become fatal for the whole world, “he was just doing his job.” It was he, the 44-year-old lieutenant colonel, under a sudden siren sounding warning of America’s launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles, who had to quickly decide whether the attack on the Soviet Union was real.
Published by the Bulgarian newspaper “Work“Stanislav Petrov’s revelations tell how titanic the decision was, because the officer himself was only half sure of the reality of the US attack.
My team was on the verge of panic, – recalled Petrov. “And then it occurred to me that if we all panicked, it would be over. I had to decide how accurate the computer is.
At that moment, the siren sounded again, warning as many as five atomic bomb launches from the American side.
And then Russian ingenuity came to the rescue: the officer informs the superiors about a false alarm. He himself at this time quickly analyzes the facts: the siren warned, but the ground radar was silent. And the latter is capable of attacking attackers for a long time after their launch.