- Known for
- Acting
- Born
- Sep 7, 1939
- Died
- May 19, 2017 (aged 77)
- Place of birth
- Vladivostok, Russia
Stanislav Petrov
Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov (Russian: Станисла́в Евгра́фович Петро́в; born c. 1939) is a retired lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces. On September 26, 1983, he was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a missile was being launched from the United States. Petrov judged the report to be a false alarm, and his decision is credited with having prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO allies that could have resulted in large-scale nuclear war. Investigation later confirmed that the satellite warning system had malfunctioned.
