Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Moscow. Protesting supporters of USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev and RSFSR President Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin during the construction of barricades on the Gorbaty Bridge near the House of Soviets of the RSFSR during an attempt by members of 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 USSR Vice President Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev, removed the USSR president from power and declared a state of emergency in the country. Gennady Khamelyanin/TASS