Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Moscow. A tank at the House of Soviets of the RSFSR on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment after a state of emergency was declared in the country during an attempt by members of the State Emergency Committee to carry out a coup d'etat. 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 USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev from power and created the State Emergency Committee. Vitaly Sozinov, Gennady Khamelyanin/TASS