His subsequent decision to disobey orders, against Soviet military protocol,[3] 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. An investigation later confirmed that the Soviet satellite warning system had indeed malfunctioned. Because of his decision not to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike amid this incident, Petrov is often credited as having "saved the world".[4][5][6]
^Lebedev, Anastasiya (21 May 2004). Mattern, Douglas; Waldow, Rene; Ray, Tom (eds.). "The Man Who Saved the World Finally Recognized". MosNews/Association of World Citizens (AWC). San Francisco, California, United States of America: The Association of World Citizens. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2021.
^Cite error: The named reference BBC2013 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).