(Russian: Василий Александрович Архипов) (30 January 1926–1999) was a Soviet naval officer. During the Cuban Missile Crisis he prevented the launch of a nuclear torpedo and therefore a possible nuclear war. His story is to this day unknown to the wider public, although some believe that (as the director of the National Security Archive Thomas Blanton expressed it in 2002) "a guy called Vasili Arkhipov saved the world".