Officers from the Interior Ministry's Center for Combating Extremism arrived at Chikhunov's home and took him to a police station, he said on his Telegram channel. According to Chikhunov, security forces told him the detention was because he "somewhere, at some point, published extremist material." The detention was reported by Current Time, Novaya Gazeta Europe and OVD-Info.
According to 7x7, a protocol is being drawn up against Chikhunov for displaying "extremist" symbols under Article 20.3 of the Administrative Offenses Code. The trigger was a July 2020 post announcing a rally in support of Furgal, the former governor of the Khabarovsk region, featuring an image with the slogan "I/We are Sergei Furgal."
The movement of that name was designated an "extremist" organization and banned in Russia in February 2024, nearly four years after Chikhunov's post. Novaya Gazeta noted that no registered organization with that name ever existed and that the phrase was used as a protest slogan.
Chikhunov conducts human rights work in Vladivostok, covering urban issues and criticizing the authorities. In particular, according to Current Time, he criticized the results of September elections, in which United Russia won according to official data, and the actions of the nationalist organization Russian Community.
In 2024, the Primorye Regional Court sentenced Chikhunov to three and a half years in a penal colony in a hooliganism case over a video in which he mimicked firing a grenade launcher at a memorial plaque marking the 100th anniversary of the Amur Zemstvo Assembly led by General Mikhail Diterikhs. He was initially given a suspended sentence of one year, but the sentence was toughened after a prosecutors' appeal. A cassation court later overturned the real prison term, and Chikhunov was released from pretrial detention.
Sergei Furgal was detained in July 2020, after which months of protests in his support began in the Khabarovsk region. In 2023, the former governor was sentenced to 22 years in a penal colony in a case involving the organization of murders. In a second case, on charges of creating a criminal community and large-scale fraud, he received a new term. Combined, Furgal was sentenced to 25 years in a strict-regime penal colony, Mediazona reported.