Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Moscow. A column of infantry fighting vehicles of the Taman Division, which sided with USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, travels along the Minsk Highway to its permanent deployment site after the failure of the State Emergency Committee of the USSR (GKChP) to stage a coup in the country with the involvement of the army. 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 the USSR President from power and declared a state of emergency in the country. Andrei Babushkin/TASS