Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov (Russian: Василий Александрович Архипов, IPA: [vɐˈsʲilʲɪj ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪtɕ arˈxʲipəf]; 30 January 1926 – 19 August 1998) was a senior Soviet Naval officer who prevented a Soviet submarine from launching a nuclear torpedo against ships of the United States Navy at a crucial moment in the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.

[2] After a few days of conducting exercises off the south-east coast of Greenland, the submarine developed an extreme leak in its reactor coolant system.

With no backup systems, Captain Nikolai Zateyev ordered the seven members of the engineer crew to come up with a solution to avoid nuclear meltdown.

[3] On 27 October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a group of 11 United States Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph located the diesel-powered, nuclear-armed Foxtrot-class submarine B-59 near Cuba.

Despite being in international waters, the United States Navy started dropping signaling depth charges, which were intended to force the submarine to come to the surface for identification.

[7][8] The captain of the submarine, Valentin Grigoryevich Savitsky, decided that a war might already have started and wanted to launch a T-5 nuclear torpedo.

[9] Unlike other Soviet submarines armed with the "special weapon", where only the captain and the political officer were required to authorize a nuclear launch, three officers on board the B-59 were required to authorize the launch because Arkhipov was also the chief of staff of the brigade (not the commander as is often incorrectly reported, who was in fact Captain First Rank Vasili Naumovich Agafonov).

According to author Edward Wilson, the reputation Arkhipov had gained from his courageous conduct in the previous year's K-19 incident played a large role in the debate to launch the torpedo.

[13] The batteries of the B-59 ran very low and its air conditioning failed, which caused extreme heat and generated high levels of carbon dioxide inside the submarine.

"[16][17] In 2024, Sergey Radchenko, a British historian, said in the interview that the evidence on Arkhipov's involvement in the Cuban Crisis is based on the oral history published by Svetlana Savranskaya.

[19] Each captain was required to present a report of events during the mission to Marshal Andrei Grechko, who substituted for the ill Soviet defense minister.

Researcher Alexander Mozgovoi has written that when Grechko learned about this discrepancy, he "removed his glasses and hit them against the table in fury, breaking them into small pieces and abruptly leaving the room after that".

[21] In 2002, retired Commander Vadim Pavlovich Orlov, a participant in the events, held an interview revealing that the submarines were armed with nuclear torpedoes and that Arkhipov was the reason those weapons had not been fired.

"[23] Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., an advisor for the John F. Kennedy administration and a historian, continued this thought by stating "This was not only the most dangerous moment of the Cold War.

The character of Captain Mikhail Polenin, portrayed by Liam Neeson, in the 2002 film K-19: The Widowmaker was closely based on Arkhipov's tenure on Soviet submarine K-19.