Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Leningrad. Supporters of USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev and RSFSR President Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin during their vigil at the barricade they built near the television center to protect democracy after the announcement 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 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. Yuri Belinsky/TASS