Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Moscow. An attempt by supporters of USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev and RSFSR President Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin to block a column of armored vehicles in the Tchaikovsky Tunnel on the Garden Ring during 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 USSR President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev from power and created the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP). Gennady Khamelyanin/TASS