Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Moscow. Supporters of USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev and RSFSR President Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin blocking traffic on Novinsky Boulevard with trolleybuses to block a column of armored vehicles in the Tchaikovsky Tunnel during an attempt by members of the State Emergency Committee 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 USSR Vice President Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev, removed the president of the USSR from power and created the State Emergency Committee. Gennady Khamelyanin/TASS