In Primorye, community activist Maksim Chikhunov was detained over an image with the caption “I/WE Sergei Furgal.”

On the morning of 12 October, officers from the “E” Centre arrived at community activist Maksim Chikhunov’s home and took him to the police station, reports RusNews. According to NewsBox24, the authorities’ claims relate to a 2020 post featuring an image with the caption “I/WE Sergei Furgal.” At that time, Chikhunov had published an announcement for a rally in support of the governor of Khabarovsk Krai, a region in the Russian Far East. Now, a protocol is being drawn up against the activist for displaying “extremist” symbols, reports Vladivostok1.

The movement “I/WE Sergei Furgal” was declared an “extremist” organisation and banned in Russia in February 2024, nearly four years after Chikhunov’s post. However, “Novaya Gazeta” noted that there was no registered organisation by that name: the phrase “I/WE Sergei Furgal” was used as a protest slogan.

• Previously, Maksim Chikhunov was tried in a hooliganism case over a video in which he mimicked shooting at a memorial plaque to White general Mikhail Diterikhs with a rocket launcher tube. He was initially given a one-year suspended sentence, but after a prosecution appeal this was increased to three and a half years in a penal colony. Later, a cassation court overturned the actual prison sentence and Chikhunov was released from pre-trial detention.
• Sergei Furgal was detained in July 2020, after which months-long protests in his support began in Khabarovsk Krai, a Russian Far East region. In 2023, the former governor was sentenced to 22 years in a penal colony for organising murders. Later, on a second case concerning the creation of a criminal community and large-scale fraud, he received an additional sentence. In total, Furgal received 25 years in a high-security penal colony, reported “Mediazona.”