Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Moscow. Servicemen on the Minsk Highway, following a column of infantry fighting vehicles of the Taman Division to their permanent deployment site after the failure of the attempt by the State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR (GKChP) to carry out a coup in the country. 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 Vice President of the USSR Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev, removed USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev from power and declared a state of emergency in the country. Andrei Babushkin/TASS