President of the RSFSR B.N. Yeltsin

USSR. Moscow. President of the RSFSR Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin at a meeting with people's deputies of the Russian parliament after the failure of the attempt by members of the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP) to carry out a coup d'etat in the country. Representatives of the top Soviet leadership, led by Vice President of the USSR Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev, removed President of the USSR Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev from power on August 19, 1991 and declared 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. Dmitry Sokolov/TASS