Russian authorities have detained a political performance artist best known for nailing his scrotum to Red Square after he torched the entrance to the headquarters of the FSB security service, the successor to the KGB.

Pyotr Pavlensky set fire to the wooden doors of the sprawling FSB building in central Moscow at about 1am on Monday, his lawyer Olga Chavdar said.

A video posted online shows flames leaping to the top of the doorway as Pavlensky stands in front of it holding a petrol canister, before a policeman comes running up to him.

The video is titled The Burning Door of the Lubyanka, using the popular name for the security service headquarters. In a message released with the video, Pavlensky said: “The FSB acts using a method of unending terror and holds power over 146 million people.”

The FSB building, which take up an entire block, was used by Soviet-era secret police for interrogations, detaining opponents and extra-judicial killings. President Vladimir Putin briefly headed the FSB and was a KGB agent in East Germany during the Soviet era.

Pavlensky’s lawyer said the FSB questioned the activist and asked him whether he had intended to kill anyone.

“He was detained at 1am after which he was in the FSB headquarters, where they insistently asked him whose death he wanted,” she said. “He told them: ‘What are you saying? I don’t want anyone’s death.’”

Chavdar said it was unclear what charges Pavlensky could face but suggested he could be charged with arson, for which he could be imprisoned for up to five years if convicted.

“I think it will be a criminal case, everything points to that. It’s hard to say what charge: anything can happen in our country,” the lawyer said.

In his statement, Pavlensky accused the FSB of “terrorism” and said: “The threat of inevitable reprisals hangs over everyone within the range of security cameras, phone-tapping and passport control borders.” He called the act a “reflex to fight for my own life”.

Two journalists who watched were questioned before being released, reported the Dozhd independent TV station, whose journalist was at the scene.

In 2013 Pavlensky stripped naked and nailed his scrotum to the cobblestones of Red Square to protest against police controls. The case was eventually closed due to the lack of any crime.

Police approach Pyotr Pavlensky during a protest in 2013 front of the Kremlin. Photograph: Russia

He has been charged with vandalism and could face up to three years in jail for another performance, called Freedom, held in St Petersburg last year. During that action, he and other activists set fire to tyres and waved a Ukrainian flag to simulate the Maidan protests in Kiev that led to the ousting of a pro-Moscow leader.

In other shocking performances to highlight a lack of civil freedoms, Pavlensky has sewn up his lips, wrapped himself in barbed wire and cut off part of his earlobe.

Russian artists who carry out political stunts usually face up to 15 days in police cells for petty hooliganism, but depending on how their actions are interpreted they can face much stiffer sentences.

In 2012 two members of Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in a penal colony for hooliganism after their performance in a church protesting against close ties between the Russian Orthodox church and Putin.

A member of the punk band, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, praised “wonderful Pyotr and his performance” on Facebook.