Petersen says that Estonian leaders, quietly alerted by senior. officers in the regular Army, sent a plane to fly Yeltsin from Moscow to Tallinn, the republic’s capital. There, he delivered a speech urging the military not to fire on their fellow citizens. Afterward, the Estonians planned to fly Yeltsin back to Moscow. But, Petersen says, regular Army officers quietly warned that Yeltsin’s plane wouldn’t make it. Yeltsin drove to Leningrad, then flew home.
