An diesem Tag im Jahr 1983, auf dem Höhepunkt des Kalten Krieges, verhinderte der sowjetische Oberstleutnant Stanislaw Petrow einen möglichen Atomkrieg, indem er Alarmsignale, die auf einen bevorstehenden US-Raketenangriff hindeuteten, als Fehlalarm identifizierte.

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 four more. Petrov judged the reports to be a false alarm.

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 would have resulted in a large-scale nuclear war.

An investigation later confirmed that the Soviet satellite warning system had indeed malfunctioned.

He received no reward. According to Petrov, this was because the incident and other bugs found in the missile detection system embarrassed his superiors and the scientists who were responsible for it, so that if he had been officially rewarded, they would have had to be punished.

He was reassigned to a less sensitive post and took early retirement.

And on this day today Putin changed the nuclear doctrine. The choice of date feels symbolic.

Since I was born on that exact day in 1983 – thank you, Stanislav.

Damn. So close to a Fallout timeline. Hoarding all these thousands of caps is gonna end up being a bad idea at this point.