THE DOLINA CASE AS A MEDIATOR OF SOCIAL TENSIONS

Pubblicato il 1 Febbraio 2026 da NAD

IL CASO DOLINA COME MEDIATORE DELLE TENSIONI SOCIALI

by V. Zagretdinov

Keywords: social tensions, real estate fraud, Russian Supreme Court, psychological manipulation, Dolina case

Background

Ruling No. 5-KG25-174-K2 of 16 December 2025 of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation marked an important stage in a widely discussed case involving the pop star and public figure Larisa Dolina. The dispute arose after she sold her Moscow apartment in 2014 for approximately 112 million rubles (about 1.24 million euros). Later that year, Dolina claimed that the transaction was the result of telephone fraud she had experienced.

Due to its sensitive nature, the case attracted enormous public attention, with the public sympathising with the buyer and awaiting a just resolution. In response to this attention, the court decided to broadcast the hearing online, which is highly unusual for the Russian judicial system. According to Russian legal news outlets, the broadcast was monitored by up to 27,000 viewers simultaneously. The case sparked a broader debate on how civil law should respond to transactions concluded under severe psychological manipulation.

This case is significant for several reasons


First, it is situated within a broader trend in Russian legal practice. In recent years, a large number of disputes have emerged involving real estate transactions concluded under the influence of fraud. After selling their apartments, sellers increasingly claim that they acted under the pressure of scammers. In such cases, this argument has often allowed sellers to obtain restitution of the property. At the same time, the purchase price is not returned to the buyer, as the funds have already been transferred to the scammers. This practice has gained wide recognition in Russia as the “Dolina scheme.”

Second, this particular dispute came to symbolise a broader social conflict concerning structural state injustice. The Russian singer Dolina, given her public status, institutional embeddedness and perceived proximity to state structures, came to symbolise power, while the buyer, in the eyes of the public, represented the ordinary and vulnerable population deprived of both effective legal protection (especially in cases involving fraud) and institutional guarantees. This perception persisted despite the fact that the buyer was not unknown and the transaction concerned a purchase rather than an expropriation.

Third, a widely circulated view in the media and public debate suggested that judicial practice incapable of effectively protecting buyers on the secondary housing market may, in practice, indirectly benefit real estate developers. According to this narrative, the construction sector has experienced rapid growth driven by state support for mortgage lending. At the same time, persistently high housing prices, the use of low-cost materials, and the widespread construction of budget high-rise housing have reportedly contributed to a slowdown in demand for new developments.

Thus, the Supreme Court’s decision, especially given the inconsistency of its reasoning, may be interpreted as a politico-legal instrument aimed at reducing social tension.

Law

Although the Court sided with the purchaser of the apartment, the decision does not eliminate the key problems that the phenomenon of telephone fraud poses for civil law. Moreover, the text makes it clear that the so-called “Dolina scheme” is hardly resolved once and for all.

The Civil Code provides for at least three mechanisms applicable to a situation in which an apartment is sold under the influence of fraudsters. These include: the seller’s temporary incapacity to understand the meaning of, or to control, their actions (Article 177), a fundamental mistake (Article 178), or actions of the seller under the influence of deceit, violence, or threat (Article 179). Each of these mechanisms requires its own set of evidence, but taken together they are more or less similar in their legal consequences: each party must return to the other everything received under the transaction. Much more important is the fact that only one of these mechanisms focuses on the psychological state of the seller entering into the transaction.

Schematically, the difference between these mechanisms looks as follows. Article 178 concerns cases where the seller is mistaken as to the very nature of the transaction or its form. For example, the seller thought they were selling an apartment, but formally entered into a gift agreement. Article 179 deals with situations where the seller understands what transaction they are making but is forced into it under a direct threat. For example, the seller was compelled to give up the apartment under threat of violence.

However, the key difference of the third mechanism (Article 177) from the other two is that here the seller no longer understands their own actions. While Articles 178 and 179 presume that the seller acts consciously (albeit under pressure or mistakenly), Article 177 speaks precisely about the seller’s internal state, their psychology, when the seller is simply incapable of understanding what they are doing or controlling their conduct.

The Court’s decision


In the court proceedings, Dolina’s representatives built their position on the provisions of Article 178 (fundamental mistake). Allegedly, Dolina was mistaken as to the motives of the transaction. She was not selling the apartment, but intended to place the money into a “safe account.” The Supreme Court seized on this logic, pointing out that under the law a mistake as to the motives of a transaction, in itself, is insufficient grounds for invalidating it.

At the same time, the Court spent considerable effort discussing the seller’s psychology (that same Article 177). In general terms, the Court concluded that the claimant Dolina herself had not chosen an appropriate legal remedy. First and foremost, she relied precisely on a mistake regarding the motives of the transaction (Article 178). Although Dolina’s representatives also pointed to elements of Article 177, the Supreme Court noted that Dolina had consistently refused to undergo the relevant expert examination. Since the Court is bound by the claimant’s litigation strategy and the existing body of evidence, it was therefore compelled not to examine this aspect.

The piquancy of the situation lies in the fact that the case file contains two expert examinations conducted within the framework of a criminal fraud case. These examinations specifically state that Dolina was deprived of the “ability to fully comprehend … her actions” and that she herself “was used as an instrument to achieve the goal of committing a crime [by the fraudsters].” The Court mentioned these examinations but did not consider them worthy of attention, since “an expert opinion obtained in criminal proceedings does not substitute for a judicial expert opinion appointed in the course of civil proceedings,” because in the criminal case the experts did not answer the questions relevant to the civil case.

Law and fraudsters (conclusions)

Facts
It is unknown whether professional real estate agents, assistants, or other persons involved in the case could have suspected that something was wrong; or whether the significant discount from the initial asking price of the apartment conveyed any warning signals to the buyer (at least 18 million rubles, that is (about 1.24 million euros). These issues, obviously, deserve more detailed consideration.

Policy
In the final analysis, an unusual elite–popular conflict (over a large apartment in the very center of Moscow) effectively obscured a very important question. What is to be done with those who truly could not control their actions under the influence of fraudsters? Why does the fraudsters’ strategy turn out to be so successful, both in terms of exploiting the vulnerable psychology of victims and in terms of the ease of withdrawing funds and the accessibility of credit? It should not be forgotten that this problem also exists in criminal law, since fraudsters not only take money but can also push victims into committing crimes, and there are already plenty of such examples in the news.

It seems that the scale of this problem is so large and so significant in its political consequences (why is society structured in such a vulnerable way?) that it is clearly impossible to address it through an episodic ruling of the Supreme Court. Therefore, the Court took a rather conservative stance in favor of preserving the “stability of civil turnover,” although, judging by its decision, it is clearly aware of a fairly serious social and legal problem.

Law
Another point worth noting is the preservation of risks associated with purchasing secondary housing (and civil turnover in general). The Supreme Court’s hint that everything might have turned out differently had Dolina’s representatives pursued the path of Article 177 risks leaving the problem of “protecting turnover” unresolved. In effect, bad-faith sellers may seek to invoke claims of incapacity as a litigation strategy in the future. Mandatory psychiatric examinations at the time of concluding transactions already appear to function as a form of risk mitigation; however, in the absence of stable judicial practice, their effectiveness remains uncertain.

SOURCES

NAD

V. Zagretdinov[1]

[1] Ph.D. Candidate, Faculty of Law, Lomonosov Moscow State University; Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Lomonosov Moscow State University; LL.M. in Private Law, Russia; Master of Science (London School of Economics), Moscow, Russia (e-mail: v.zagretdinov@gmail.com).

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