By Sultan Musayev | 2025-12-23

In Russia, selling your apartment, handing the money to scammers and refusing to leave usually means you lose twice -- the home and the cash. Unless, it seems, you are Larisa Dolina.

The celebrated singer and People's Artist of Russia openly supports the war in Ukraine. She has performed morale-boosting concerts for "special military operation" fighters and sent guitars and supplies to the front.

Russian concert halls remain open to stars like Dolina, while artists who call for an end to the war are sidelined. Last year, that loyalty coincided with a court victory that would later ignite a nationwide backlash.

A different verdict

In spring 2024, scammers called Dolina posing as officials from the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Rosfinmonitoring, Russia's financial intelligence agency. They said her luxury Moscow apartment was under threat and that she needed to sell it and transfer the proceeds -- 112 million RUB (about $1.2 million) -- to what they described as a secure account.

After the sale contract was signed, Dolina discovered the scam and refused to vacate the apartment. The buyer sued, and the dispute moved to court.

Under normal circumstances, the outcome appeared straightforward. Russian courts have repeatedly ruled that sellers who voluntarily transfer money to scammers remain responsible for their losses. But Dolina's case took a different turn.

In March, Moscow's Khamovnichesky District Court ruled in her favor, invalidating the transaction. The buyer, Muscovite Polina Lurye, lost the right to recover the money she paid. The court said Dolina "had no real intention of selling her apartment." The Moscow City Court and a cassation court upheld the ruling last fall.

However, the case ignited a wave of public anger. With tens of millions of social media mentions and widespread derision of her actions that left many Russians calling her one of the country's most disliked pop stars, it reached Russia's Supreme Court.

In a livestreamed hearing December 16 watched by more than 230,000 people, the court overturned the lower rulings and found that Lurye was the apartment's rightful owner.

In its final decision, the court said Dolina's conduct stemmed from a "change in mental state" that left her unable to recognize the fraud or "predict the possible consequences of her actions in legally significant circumstances."

No legal analog

Lawyers called the initial ruling in Dolina's favor unusual.

Retired judge Elizaveta Vasilyeva said in November that the ruling had no parallel in established practice. Even if a court voids a transaction, she said, the law requires mutual restitution: the seller gets the property back, and the buyer gets the money.

Precedents in such cases are well established.

In one case in the Kaluga region, a homeowner sold an apartment, handed the money to scammers and refused to move out. A court ruled for the buyer.

In Yakutia, a similar case involving a pensioner ended the same way when the republic's Supreme Court ruled that the buyer would keep the property.

Dolina's victory triggered public backlash. Critics accused the court of bias, arguing that her fame and loyalty to the Kremlin influenced the outcome.

A campaign to "cancel Dolina" emerged in several cities, with some partners ending cooperation and businesses publicly refusing to work with her.

Aygerim Boobekova, an employee at a Shokoladnitsa coffee shop in Moscow, told Kontur that the ruling must be linked to Dolina's status.

"She's a People's Artist and a so-called patriot, she supports the special military operation. Of course, she won the case," Boobekova quipped. "But such injustice irritates people."

Dolina has faced criticism even from other pro-war and pro-Kremlin figures. Actor Nikita Dzhigurda and singer Vika Tsyganova condemned her conduct. Poet Vadim Tsyganov described it as "anything goes" behavior.

'Anything goes' culture

Many observers see the case as part of a broader trend in Russia, where support for the war increasingly shields individuals from accountability. Media outlets regularly report on unlawful or criminal acts by Z-patriots, critics say, but consequences are rare. The result is growing public resentment.

Kontur has previously reported on radical nationalists who hunt down army deserters while police look away. Members of the far-right group Russian Community film themselves breaking into apartments, detaining young men and forcibly sending them to the front. Independent journalists with the politica_media project said the group has no legal authority to detain anyone and is openly committing crimes.

"That means they're confident that in general the police and the government won't touch them," one journalist said.

According to the Ukrainian project I Want to Live, groups like Russian Community are "very useful or are paid off directly by the FSB," and authorities "willingly shut their eyes to the violence if it’s channeled in the necessary... direction."

Returned veterans of the war in Ukraine also benefit from informal immunity, critics say.

Media reports show a rise in crimes committed by self-described "heroes of the special military operation," including assaults, robberies and domestic violence. Psychologists often cite post-traumatic stress disorder, but domestic security agencies tend to ignore the problem, focusing instead on external threats.

Islam Baigaraev, head of a bar association in Bishkek, said Russian authorities have effectively created an informal hierarchy of citizens, dividing them into "acceptable" ones -- those who support the Kremlin's agenda -- and "unacceptable" ones, critics branded "foreign agents" and left in a vulnerable position.

The first group enjoys privileges, he said, while the second is pushed to the margins of the legal system. That dynamic erodes equality before the law.

"Trust in the courts is being destroyed. 'Anything goes' is being encouraged among security agencies and semi-private groups, and the law no longer applies to all," Baigaraev told Kontur. "And the longer this continues, the more difficult it will be to restore the law to its primary purpose, which is to serve not the state, but the interests of citizens."