What role did the KGB play in the 1991 attempted coup against Mikhail Gorbachev?

In the summer of 1991, senior officials within the KGB, including chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov, played a central role in an abortive coup intended to reverse the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev and restore the ideological and bureaucratic purity of the Soviet system.1

These hard-liners sought to seize control of the Soviet Union by holding Gorbachev captive. However, the coup ultimately failed because many KGB and military officers refused to carry out orders to suppress the opposition, such as storming the White House in Moscow. The plotters also failed to account for the impact of democratization, as the public and local police forces did not obey their edicts.23

Following the collapse of the coup, the KGB suffered a significant loss of power. It was systematically stripped of its military units and many domestic security functions, and its fall from grace was symbolically marked by the removal of the statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky from Lubyanka Square.13