From August 19–21, 1991, an attempted coup d'état took place when conservative functionaries and orthodox communists tried to take power in Moscow by force of arms, taking into detention the incumbent president Gorbatchev at his Crimea dacha. The coup failed, and Gorbatchev stayed in power de jure. De facto, however, he lost control over the Soviet Union: The recently elected president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Boris Yeltsin, came out against the plotters and in favor of Gorbatchev, and barricaded up in the White House. At the same time, he seized local power regardless, and later had the CPSU banned (which was Gorbatchev's and the putschists' party at the same time). Days later, on August 24, 1991, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic declared itself independent from the Soviet Union.