General Yury Votintsev, then commander of the Soviet Air Defense's Missile Defense Units, who was the first to hear Petrov's report of the incident (and the first to reveal it to the public in the 1990s), states that Petrov's "correct actions" were "duly noted". ![]() Initially, he was praised for his decision. Petrov underwent intense questioning by his superiors about his judgment. He said that his colleagues were all professional soldiers with purely military training and, following instructions, would have reported a missile launch if they had been on his shift. He felt that his civilian training helped him make the right decision. However, in a 2013 interview, Petrov said at the time he was never sure that the alarm was erroneous. Petrov later indicated that the influences on his decision included that he had been told a US strike would be all-out, so five missiles seemed an illogical start that the launch detection system was new and, in his view, not yet wholly trustworthy that the message passed through 30 layers of verification too quickly and that ground radar failed to pick up corroborating evidence, even after minutes of delay. It was subsequently determined that the false alarm had been created by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds above North Dakota and the Molniya orbits of the satellites, an error later corrected by cross-referencing a geostationary satellite. Later, it was apparent that he was right: no missiles were approaching and the computer detection system was malfunctioning. Petrov declared the system's indication a false alarm. Had Petrov reported incoming American missiles, his superiors might have launched an assault against the United States, precipitating a corresponding nuclear response from the United States. Petrov has said that he was neither rewarded nor punished for his actions. In any case, the incident exposed a serious flaw in the Soviet early warning system. Main article: 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incidentĪccording to the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN, nuclear retaliation requires that multiple sources confirm an attack. ![]() ![]() Because of his decision not to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike amid this incident, Petrov is often credited as having "saved the world". An investigation later confirmed that the Soviet satellite warning system had indeed malfunctioned. His subsequent decision to disobey orders, against Soviet military protocol, is credited with having prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO allies that could have resulted in a large-scale nuclear war which could have wiped out half of the population of the countries involved. Petrov judged the reports to be a false alarm. On 26 September 1983, three weeks after the Soviet military had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a missile had been launched from the United States, followed by up to five more. Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov ( Russian: Станисла́в Евгра́фович Петро́в 7 September 1939 – ) was a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces who played a key role in the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident.
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