Photo: RIA NOVOSTI/TOPFOTOFrom The Telegraph:
General Valentin Varennikov , who died on May 7 aged 85, commanded the Soviet forces in Afghanistan during the 1980s and later became an idol for those Russians who feel nostalgia for the certainties of communism.
In August 1991, as the Soviet Union began to break up, Varennikov was one of 12 plotters who, in a bungled three-day operation, tried to oust President Mikhail Gorbachev by holding him under house arrest at his dacha on the Black Sea. The coup failed when the army refused to put down street demonstrations in support of Boris Yeltsin, who rallied opposition to the plotters and subsequently became president.
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