Attempted coup in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Moscow. Military personnel on Kutuzovsky Prospekt during the attempted coup d'etat by members of the State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR (GKChP). 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 the Vice President of the USSR Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev, removed the President of the USSR from power and declared a state of emergency in the country. Eduard Pesov/TASS