‘The manwho saved theworld’ – Stanislav Petrov, aged 77

Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet military officer known in the West as “the man who saved the world” for his role in averting a nuclear war over a false missile warning, has died aged 77.

Mr Petrov’s friend, Karl Schumacher, said he died on May 19, but the news was not reported until yesterday.

Mr Petrov was on night duty at the Soviet military’s early-warning facility outside Moscow on September 26 1983 when an alarm went off, signalling the launch of several US intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The 44-year-old lieutenant colonel had to quickly determine whether the attack was real, and he correctly determined it to be a false alarm.

In an interview in 2015, Mr Petrov recalled the moments at the Serpukhov-15 control centre when the fate of the world was in his hands.

“I realised that I had to make some kind of decision, and I was only 50:50,” he said.

If he had judged it a real launch, the top Soviet military brass and the Kremlin would have had no time for extra analysis in a few minutes left before the incoming nuclear-tipped missiles hit Soviet territory.

They would have likely ordered a retaliatory strike, triggering a nuclear war.

Mr Petrov recalled standing up as the alarm siren blared and seeing that the others were all looking at him in confusion.

“My team was close to panic and it hit me that if panic sets in then it’s all over,” he said.

He told his commander the system was giving false information and, while was not certain, he noted the ground radar could not confirm a launch.

The false alarm was later determined to have been caused by a satellite malfunction.

Although his commanding officer did not support Mr Petrov at the time, he was the one who revealed the incident after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

After his story was told, Mr Petrov has received accolades, international awards and became known as “the man who saved the world”.

But his role won him little fame in his homeland, where he continued to live in a small flat near Moscow.

Stanislav Petrov.