On 6 March 2022, in Nova Kakhovka, Kherson region — already occupied by Russian forces — a rally took place under Ukrainian flags. Local activists brought a portable speaker that played the Ukrainian national anthem and Ukrainian songs. They marched in a column to the executive committee, where they tore down the Russian tricolour and put the yellow-and-blue flag back in its place. Working at the rally was Serhii Tsyhipa — a journalist, reserve major who had previously served in the KGB of the USSR, the SBU and the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), and a three-term deputy of the Nova Kakhovka City Council. He had already taken part in similar rallies before. On 12 March, Tsyhipa was detained after travelling to Tavriisk to deliver medicine to his mother-in-law.

After his detention, Serhii Tsyhipa was out of contact for several months. In October 2022 it became known that he had been sent to Pre-Trial Detention Centre No. 1, and then to Pre-Trial Detention Centre No. 2 in Simferopol. His deprivation of liberty was formally registered only on 27 December 2022 by the Kyivskyi District Court of Simferopol. This means that from 12 March to 26 December 2022 Tsyhipa was held unlawfully — without any procedural status. After the verdict, the journalist has been held in strict-regime Penal Colony No. 3 in the town of Skopin, Ryazan Region. Oleksandr Tarasov, who was detained together with Serhii Tsyhipa on 12 March and released in 2023, recounted that on 16 March 2022 they were taken to Crimea, held together for 24 hours in a "stakan" cell in the FSB building in Simferopol, and on 17 March placed in Pre-Trial Detention Centre No. 1 in Simferopol. In October 2022, the entire "Ukrainian" special unit of Pre-Trial Detention Centre No. 1, including Oleksandr Tarasov and Serhii Tsyhipa, was transferred to the newly opened Pre-Trial Detention Centre No. 2 in Simferopol. According to Tarasov's testimony, while in captivity Tsyhipa was subjected to torture and ill-treatment, as Russian security forces were aware of his past.

In December 2022, Serhii Tsyhipa was charged with "espionage" (Article 276 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and inflicting damage on Russia during the so-called "special military operation" (SVO).

According to the prosecution, by 4 March 2022 Tsyhipa had begun cooperating with an SBU officer, who had instructed him to gather information on the movements and numbers of Russian Armed Forces units in the Kherson region. On 10 March, Tsyhipa allegedly told this officer, as well as the commander of a motorized infantry brigade of the Operational Command "South" of the AFU, the location of a radio relay station providing headquarters communications for the Russian Armed Forces.

On 6 December 2023, the occupational "Supreme Court of Crimea" sentenced him to 13 years in a strict-regime colony. The verdict was delivered by Judge Viktor Nikolayevich Sklyarov.

Memorial included Serhii Tsyhipa on its list of political prisoners