Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Moscow. Members of the State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR (GKChP), Chairman of the Peasant Union of the USSR Vasily Aleksandrovich Starodubtsev during a press conference in the press center of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs after the announcement of the introduction of a state of emergency 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 GKChP removed USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev from power and introduced a state of emergency in the country. Vladimir Musaelyan, Alexander Chumichev/TASS