Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Moscow. An armored personnel carrier near the new building of the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union on Nikitskiye Vorota Square during an attempt by members of the State Emergency Committee (SEC) to carry out a coup d'etat. In order to prevent the signing of the Union Treaty, which was supposed to replace the USSR with a new federation of sovereign states, representatives of the highest Soviet leadership, headed by USSR Vice President Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev, removed the president of the USSR from power and declared a state of emergency in the country. Oleg Buldakov/TASS