Is this really a thing in Russia?

Stanislav Petrov .

@sinscriven Wish I could you more than one Great Answer.

@Tropical_Willie Nah, just doing my google-fu duty!

@sinscriven Well, wow, that was quick. Thanks a lot, dude!

Yea there is a Early Detection Warning System and it were build in the eighties, a program known as Mutual Assured Destruction was created known as MAD. Trough several satellites the American and the Russians monitored so called light anomalies to detect nuclear explosions. It were a part of a few billion dollar project known as Star Wars. To this day there is still such a system in most countries who have nuclear devises.

@antimatter Good point, all the nuclear powers built similar systems to react to an attack.
In the U.S. it resulted in the largest computers ever built, the SAGE , along with pioneering network technology that would later become ArpaNet (which later became the internet).

All while Reagan & Gorbachev were meeting in Rekyiavik to discuss nuke arms reduction. Concurrent was a massive planned war-game by US forces to test communications for nuke and other battle orders for a world wide mobilization. Really happened. Fiction has to make sense. Life is mad sometimes, death is no joke either.