plus marty h.q. is kevin owen here tonight stuff past eleven pm moscow time management top stories battle rages in libya multiple reports of fierce clashes around tripoli tonight as colonel gadhafi calls on citizens to take up arms against the rebels become trees major military bases now full to be in rebel hands strengthening their chance is about right victory. suggestions of ceasefire egypt reportedly managed to convince both gaza and israel to lay down arms after days of heavy shelling. and many stories must reach is gone the crackdown against english wired's is gaining

momentum with harsh sentences handed to those who played only minor parts in the chaos and human rights groups and judges and politicians went too far. also the leaders promised the best single economic government failed to reassure anxious investors is fresh trouble over greece once again threaten the stability. this week also marks twenty years since the violin kuwait overthrow mikhail gorbachev changed the course of history for the soviet union next a close look at those dramatic events in our special report. central moscow moscow's regional k.g.b. headquarters. early morning of august the nineteenth one nine hundred ninety one. this is the officer and. the events of the day the could have reversed the country's history. in attempts to depose president mikhail

gorbachev put his reforms on hold. tanks and other hardware thirteen moved into moscow. the city's key points have been taken over. as the nineteenth one nine hundred ninety one monday only in the morning teacher tatiana yakovlev or switched her t.v. on a sort of following picture instead of the usual programming every channel was broadcasting tchaikovsky's famous ballet. i thought of which i turned the t.v. on to check the latest news and i was so surprised to see swan lake everywhere i was switching the t.v. channels for a long time thinking maybe there was something wrong with my t.v. set. at the same time as the ballot will cast more than seven

hundred tanks and on the personnel carriers being stationed in the streets the porters were in the criminal. meanwhile those so-called white house was at the center of civil resistance at the time it housed the russian parliament with the people's deputies met in session on our way. it was past seven in the morning when the security chief came to my place. when i opened the door it's old me i had better go to the white house right away. so far as i could tell there was a coup going on in the country that's how i learned about it we decided to take a roundabout route instead of going straight to this building for. the coup was led by top brass and high ranking communist officials they had expected to get support from the population who were dissatisfied with the long

drawn process of perestroika. they decided to make short work of gorbachev reforms . the situation was quite a lot the country was in turmoil. there was a revolt of the hungry but equal standing in line for sausages stoop to fist fights but there were pervis of sort of jism a consumer market. but the country's president waved good bye to everybody and headed down south to the career to relax in. the crimean peninsula southern shore serbian president mikhail gorbachev's private residence in the village of force. both its and scores of surrounding hecht as it came a prison for the head of state here he spent several days and what amounted to confinement but there were a psych can be seen from all sides you get an almost bird's eye view of it from the

mountain the rood leading to the residence can easily be blocked with stones after those events the joke here was that gorbachev's residence must have been deliberately built in this place so that he could be easily cut off from the outside world you've got to go through where the. k.g.b. colonel left tolstoy was directly involved in the events of those days he's a direct descendant the namesake of the celebrated russian novelist leo tolstoy. before he rose to the rank of colonel he served as a bodyguard on august eighteenth one thousand nine hundred one top k.g.b. officials ordered him to block all exits from the gorbachev residence but i have no idea what would have happened if gorbachev and others had tried to escape from the residence but i do think he would have faced very unpleasant consequences for.

this is exclusive footage of the residence of the first savior president the splendid park was laid out almost on their ranks this have special significance because gorbachev was known to be very fond of strolling by the seaside. what if you please or is only cedars these pines and the shrubs were all planted just before the territory was to be commissioned in one thousand eight hundred eight. but it was a short while before mikhail gorbachev's first visit here. the crimean residence was named tara trees and k.g.b. documentation the interior design of the main building reflected the wishes of race ago which over the president's wife she was with mikhail gorbachev throughout the force or deal. with arms or you really built what i would

describe as internal defenses there the men carrying guns with live ammunition were posted all over the place they were under strict orders not to allow provocations or walk out of. the soviet president study was on the second floor close to the hole it was here that mikhail gorbachev learned about his complete isolation from the outside world. gorbachev study looks just like it was back then for this is his desk we were aboard and that telephone was meant for communicating with government officials. the line was shut down or pm on august eighteenth. gorbachev remained in his residence moreover measures to isolate him were reinforced still further valarie shah was the one who got at the gates to the residence during two k.g.b.

officers from moscow kept a close eye on him along with other local agents. special measures were taken with a truck or station on to help prevent helicopters from touching down a tractor with a trailer outside the gates was meant to prevent motor vehicles breaking through into the compound when for security precautions were introduced throughout. her army general valentyn very nick of was one of the key figures in the coup attempt on august the eighteenth one thousand nine hundred want a visit gorbachev at his residence in the crimea which. asked the serbian president to recognize the legality of the coup. we knew what we were going to do during the night tolling all that acute somehow defeated into a state of emergency and gorbachev retorted by exclaiming that

a state of emergency was bonsa bring machine guns and blood in its wake at a quarter or even i realize that other people as well as my family would suffer no doubt blood would be spilled certainly in such a vast country as ouse this country takes time to get worked up when it does you can hardly stop it my belief is the country's modernization without blood. august nineteenth one thousand nine hundred one must go eleven am i cried halt armored personnel carriers heading for the city center demonstrators climb one of them chanting no to fascism. hundreds of people gather womanish square in central moscow they are ready to oppose the so-called state committee on the state of emergency people who met each other back then drink to still keep in touch and remember those events.

hello hello hello brothers and seeing in a hundred years when my parents woke me up in the morning they told me that a coup was underway i was actively involved in the youth democratic movement so i said if no one i know was arrested right away if this is no call at all yes there were tanks but people are blocking them off what kind of coup is it if tanks can be stopped short in their tracks. a small radio set is one of the most treasured mementos from those days people used it to listen to the few independent stations that was still in. one report said the air force refused to side with the coup our call. another a military garrison in st petersburg also refused to back it it was great to hear the people in many towns were supporting us. to get

a minor radio station called echo of moscow was the main source of news in those days the k.g.b. shut it down in the first few hours of the two but whether by fair means or foul and stuff managed to regain access to the airwaves. at one point we even used telephone lines to reach out to our audience there was no link between the studio and the transmitter so our engineers used an analog telephone line modem by all accounts those words are bill and signs. the students who assumes meanwhile the coup organizers called a press conference in moscow many took note of dignity you know it's trembling hands he named himself the country's head of state claiming that gorbachev had fallen ill. the press conference reached a turning point after a question from tatiana markovna the then twenty four year old journalist who may do you realize that what you have down to do is

a coup do you see parallels with your actions in soviet history nineteen seventeen or nineteen sixty four. because for your claim that a coup took place during the night. you said i would disagree with you because all legal and constitutional norms work complied with so i bring it off and just say that they looked hesitant would be an understatement i needed and they looked as if life was dying out of them and there was no we tell it he left in their faces and she had the eyes they looked like people who had lost a battle before they had a chance to start it and i think. august nineteenth one thousand nine hundred one zero eight a spontaneous rally began in my. goes my nation as square a crowd swelled as more and more people arrived the events in moscow are described as ansi constitutional coup there are calls for an open ended general strike.

in this day on we are protesting on a large amounts are met. no to fascism no to fascism there was really never right. as you know song was sixteen years old when he committed these murders that's not to say that song so or should not be honest for his crimes song is. no rational person can deny that song has been honest is being honest and will be honest. as ours must be executed for the brutal crime committed this is. this is not to. imagine. bandstand. causing. any mercy on me whatsoever. and i didn't come here just.

came heard the rumors. this congress more. are. in my that is now. twenty years ago the largest country. to certain phrases. but had been. began a journey. where did it take the. oldest the

nineteenth nine hundred ninety one top k.g.b. officials in moscow order to reinforce security precautions. residents in the crimea on the same day mikhail gorbachev videotaped has since become a famous address. to has taken place. this anti constitutional action. is based on a tremendous lie. that there was little chance of the tape being taken out of the compound on the same day coast guards protecting the residence attempted to establish contact with the president there nominate defense since i was serving in one of the k.g.b.'s naval units i was not allowed to communicate with the president therefore i asked my wife to write a note in her own handwriting a note said that the sailors were ready to take the president to

a place of his choice one of my subordinates took the note to the security guards asking them to hand it over to gorbachev. when he came back they told him that nobody will be allowed to approach the residence and the intruders will be shot. comatose residence was secured from the sea even better than from the land. and was one of the security guards there during those days nobody could approach the shore within less than four nautical miles without being spotted by the guards if they saw the intruder as a possible threat they were under orders to open fire but they. regrouped some permanent duty scoured the woodlands. snipers were in position on the nouns. there was a soldier with a machine gun on top of the cliff near the base remains of it can feel the theme of their. day for all us have

a celebration. health resort for communist functionaries and their families was near the residence of the soviet president all this is high season that the resort was crammed with holiday makers to capacity puzzled fears self of the forest result was in charge of discos and other entertainment programs . must go on aug nineteenth i said to students and physician look the controls president mikhail gorbachev is under arrest near here shall we cancel the dances you know she said the guests should not suffer let them dance this iteration with gorbachev doesn't concern us. moscow august nineteenth one thousand nine hundred one there it seems when sea water cannons attempt to break through to the downtown area demonstrators damage

some of them and force them to turn back. meanwhile the cool denies this ordered the arrest of the presidents of russia boris yeltsin at the time he was at his residence in moscow and chief of his security guards alexander korsakoff was with him they drove a service call to moscow and reached the city on him that. more youth of. yeltsin was seated between two guards or are you flatly turned down the idea of wearing a bulletproof vest so we simply put it over him just in case. that heavy vest weighing nine kilos was of the kind worn in the army. a driver was told to go as fast as he could without stopping the matter what. yeltsin managed to get to the white house where he reunited with his team later he climbed a tank to read out a message to a large crowd that had gathered outside the white house we were playing all the

decisions and orders by that committee illegal. by then white house defenders had set up a makeshift barricade near the building in a bid to block the access of military vehicles. everybody was dragging whatever they could lay their hands on a trolley bus stop there the driver got out and lowered the trolleys the trolley bus was left standing across the road and barricade was here that's how we began blocking all approaches to the building. the crimea the city of sevastopol a soviet black sea fleet based fifty kilometers from gorbachev summer residence threw out the coup first rank captain sim young off waited for an order to rescue called the church of public the defense ministry part of the coup their rescue plan was ignored but they didn't i think first the pockets of resistance were to be suppressed seconds the president was to be found and taken under our protection

third the remaining pockets of resistance were to be eliminated and we were to help evacuated. president i see. the upshot of it was that naval commanders only sent a telegram to cool betroth urging him to hold on and that telegram was received by lubov an employee of the for us post office hundreds of telegrams addressed to go bunch of were arriving from all over the soviet union k.g.b. men immediately seized all such mail. those three days oldest eighteenth nineteenth and twentieth through the most disturbing days in my life we had no idea whether we would be allowed to go home and be arrested or simply left to run the course. was bracing for the worst case scenario people inside the white house expected an assault on the building with that possibility in mind they inspected all of the basement secret

passages leading out into nearby courtyards. some of the regular reports coming in here claimed that an assault on the building of the supreme soviet would begin in an hour's time but why would they need an assault or the building is like an aquarium all you need to do is just answer it and that's all there is still it. really actually do. this old order was in fact given to the k.g.b. so called alpha unit the men were already on high alert but for the first time in the unit's history they demanded an open debate and a vote on the order before launching operation motley fool for. the commander asked everybody to voice their opinion on the operation and whether an assault was necessary at all. yes yes. most of the men with a service record of more than five years said no to the operation. the operation

was told of but casualties were still unavoidable in the early hours of august the twenty first ninety ninety one the crews of several armored vehicles ordered to move to another location city white house defenders attempted to stop them because they thought the vehicles were heading towards the parliament building to attack it three young men died as a result. and you both come or spent the night waiting for the sun shortly before the oldest events he had served as a soldier in afghanistan he went to the white house after hearing an appeal from vice president alexander what's going to cool down people to go and defend democracy are going elsewhere for the border guard when my son had to squeeze it be you he went to the barricades because that's was a call from someone who served in afghanistan too. but a day before. i asked him if he was going to the barricades and he said no that he had his finger fighting in afghanistan. he had no business monkeying around

barricades but in tuesday it was a different story of the year on wednesday i learned that he was no more. after that tragedy it became obvious the coup had failed tanks began leaving moscow want to list the twenty first a card carrying russia's vice president would score it over took one of the convoys it was rushing to the airport to bring mikhail gorbachev back to moscow it was a total mess place on the ground and in the air. with record of pulled up and none of the ground controllers guided our flight not even jeering the landing regardless it was a trouble free flight when we touchdown the airdrome superintendent drove up to the plane i introduced myself and said i needed a car and the bus to take us to gorbachev no problem. he said go right ahead for all your. good scores plane was cool the truck on board

touchstone mosco on august twenty second one thousand nine hundred one the coup had failed but the soviet president had in effect returned to a different country much of change during those three days in august i defended the soviet union to the last bullet that's what i did but failed. within only at the standoff central moscow ammonium. felix regions keep the founder of soviet secret police standing in front of k.g.b. headquarters and look for square is pulled down it was a symbol of the beginning of a new people. the bright future which the communists had been talking about for seventy years finally became a possibility we could build it with our own hands we were used to the fact that the state was on the evidence that it could break and destroy anyone but this time nothing happened people had risen like a wall we said no enough. is approximately the same time the prosecutor

general's office launches an investigation into the role of the coup organizers the plotters tried to pass the blame on the crimean frontier guards. initially the team of investigators of the prosecutor general's office displayed tolerance of that then they began dropping hints urging us to repent and take the whole blame for gorbachev's isolation otherwise we would face charges of high treason. as military men we became very bitter when we heard the word treason. or because however the frontier guards were later acquitted only those who gave the orders were arrested the driving forces of the coup led by general to unite a year later they were released from prison under an amnesty you know i have died in two thousand and ten this is an excerpt from one of his last interviews we will nor. any misguided decisions were made during those three days in august one nine

hundred ninety one we will not text should not have been brought in and demonstrated or should not have been used for a few months and where we all could have been done and different way. when people today are asked whether they want a revival of the soviet union only nine percent say yes there is no chance of the state being revived in the form of the soviet union. mikhail gorbachev has never returned to his summer residence since august one thousand nine hundred one now it's the property of the ukrainian state however top officials rarely vacation and. the former k.g.b. colonel tolstoy makes no secret of the fact that even now he has no right to talk about some aspects of what happened then. crimean residents still harbors many secrets relating to those three days in one thousand nine hundred one only when new

information has been declassified livy able to shed light on. the figure to be frank this place is not considered to be a very lucky at all that would bet your life. that. this is the officer on duty august twenty second one thousand nine hundred ninety one by vienna boris yeltsin declares that there reactionary coup has failed and thank the defenders of the white house twelve pm for the first saw him the three colored flag is raised over the supreme council of russia. yeltsin held for. only five months or left before the collapse of the soviet union.