Attempted coup d'etat in the USSR in 1991

USSR. Leningrad. The city's mayor Anatoly Sobchak (center) during a rally on Palace Square in support of 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 the Vice President of the USSR Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev, removed the president of the USSR from power and declared a state of emergency in the country. Yuri Belinsky, Nikolai Berketov/TASS