The division has played a prominent role in two of the major political crises of recent Soviet and Russian history. In 1991, it was one of the divisions deployed in Moscow as part of the hardline coup attempt against the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev; however, it was a tank unit attached to the division that switched sides at the decisive point in the coup's course. Boris Yeltsin delivered a speech standing on top of tank no. 110, strengthening his own position significantly, both domestically and abroad.