Apartment demolition: victim of the "Valley scheme" committed self-incineration

68-year-old Natalia Ivanova, who became a victim of a fraudulent scheme with the sale of an apartment, ended up in a coma after attempting to burn herself during eviction. Doctors assess the woman's condition as extremely serious: 70% of her body was burned. The disputed property has almost completely burned out. Earlier, the woman had already been sentenced to probation for arson of the military enlistment office — after recovery, she will have to face a new criminal trial. Details of the incident and possible legal consequences can be found in the Izvestia article.

What happened

On the morning of August 5, bailiffs came to evict Natalia Ivanova, a 68-year-old former computer science teacher, from her two-room apartment located on Menzhinsky Street in northeastern Moscow. In May 2026, four years after the sale of the property, the court recognized the ownership of the buyer, Nino Citlidze, a 30—year-old teacher at Moscow State Pedagogical University.

According to Izvestia, when the bailiffs and the customer still managed to enter the apartment, the pensioner suffered severe burns as a result of her own actions. Her clothes instantly burst into flames, and the fire quickly spread to the furniture. When the flames were extinguished, the woman was already in a coma. She was urgently hospitalized and placed in intensive care. According to doctors, Natalia has 70% of her body burned, she cannot breathe on her own and is on a ventilator. The victim's condition is assessed as extremely serious. The disputed apartment was also seriously damaged by both fire and water during extinguishing.

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The history of litigation over the pensioner's housing began in 2022, when Natalia Ivanova became a victim of telephone scams. At their behest, she sold her apartment, getting a little more than 9 million rubles, transferred them to fraudsters, also took out loans, and then the fraudsters, threatening her and promising to return the money, forced her to set fire to the military enlistment office. The woman was sentenced to two years of probation. She could no longer work as a teacher and quit.

According to open data, in 2023, two participants in the fraudulent scheme who helped realize the crime against Natalia Ivanova were found and convicted. They also recovered part of the funds that the pensioner had lost.

Natalia Ivanova herself tried to get her apartment back through the court. At first, the decisions were made in her favor, but during the cassation, the property was nevertheless recognized as the property of the buyer, Nino Tsitlidze. Moreover, the new owner, due to the ongoing trials, could not move into the purchased apartment for four years, so she was forced to rent a house and pay off the mortgage monthly.

The pensioner's new case

For Natalia Ivanova, self-incineration was not only the tragic result of a long-term dispute over an apartment, but also a new legal episode: after recovery, the pensioner will have to face a possible criminal legal assessment of what happened, the lawyers interviewed told Izvestia. A new case may be opened against the pensioner for intentionally damaging someone else's property by arson. Under this article, she faces up to five years in prison.

The new owner registered the transfer of rights to the property back in September 2022. And legally, from that moment on, Natalia Ivanova has no rights to this property, she should not have lived in the apartment at all, the Director of Legal Affairs emphasized. DestraLegal.ru Boris Feldman.

"The specific qualification will depend on what intent the investigation establishes and how serious the harm has been caused to other people," he said. — If it is proved that the woman intended to take the lives of people in the apartment or deliberately set a fire for this very purpose, a more serious qualification is possible — up to attempted murder in a generally dangerous way.

However, another assessment of what happened is possible — as unintentional harm, Anton Klyuchko, head of the law branch of Klyuchko, Landau and Partners, told Izvestia.

"If a pensioner doused herself with fuel to commit an act of self—immolation, and the fire spread to the apartment and third parties were burned through her fault, this is unintentional damage to property or the health of others," he said. — Actual imprisonment under such articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is hardly possible.

As the media reported, Natalia Ivanova was previously diagnosed with cancer. According to Andrey Sergeev, managing partner of the Business Legal Group Bar Association, the diagnosis, as well as age, state of despair and the fact that the pensioner became a victim of fraud, should be considered as serious mitigating circumstances.

— Coma is the reason for suspending the investigation. They can be released from punishment if they are insane or have a serious illness that objectively prevents them from serving it," he added.

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And according to Anton Klyuchko, there are no reasons to be released from criminal liability, since the described actions are socially dangerous and illegal. The only exception will be the terminal stage of oncology.

According to lawyers, it is the culprit of the fire who is obliged to compensate for the damage. However, it will be difficult to recover this money if the culprit does not have property and income. Heirs are also not required to pay more than the value of their inheritance, Andrei Sergeev added.

What led to the act

The pensioner has experienced tremendous psychological pressure, says Evgeny Shcheglov, a clinical psychologist and a specialist in the Alter psychological platform. Although, in his opinion, such actions do not always indicate the presence of a mental illness, they can be the result of prolonged emotional trauma.

If a single pensioner has no one to turn to for help, the risk of being in a similar situation increases for him, says Ilya Suslov, a medical psychologist and sexologist at the Be Healthy clinic on Sushchevsky Val.

— It is possible that the actions of the pensioner were caused by age—related mental characteristics - dementia processes, suspiciousness, — he added.

According to the expert, lonely elderly people are more suggestible, therefore, in situations of doubt, they need to contact law enforcement agencies.