Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Moscow. Military personnel and civilians on Kutuzovsky Prospekt discussing the situation in the city 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 USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev from power and declared a state of emergency in the country. Vladimir Musaelyan, Eduard Pesov/TASS