Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Moscow. A column of infantry fighting vehicles of the Taman Division on the Minsk Highway en route to their permanent deployment site after the failure of the State Emergency Committee of the USSR (GKChP) to stage a coup in the country. In order to prevent the signing of the Union Treaty, which was 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 USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev from power and declared a state of emergency in the country. Andrei Babushkin/TASS