Stanislav Petrov

Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet military officer who is widely credited with helping prevent a nuclear war with the United States, has died aged 77, his son told AFP Today.

He was often called "the man who saved the world," and in some sense, he did. On the night of Sept. 26, 1983, in a period of Cold War tension, Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel on duty at a missile attack early-warning center south of Moscow, was jolted by an alarm of a U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile attack on the Soviet Union.

Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet military officer who is widely credited with helping prevent a nuclear war with the United States, has died aged 77, his son told AFP Today.

He was often called "the man who saved the world," and in some sense, he did. On the night of Sept. 26, 1983, in a period of Cold War tension, Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel on duty at a missile attack early-warning center south of Moscow, was jolted by an alarm of a U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile attack on the Soviet Union.