Ms. Kazakova’s lawyers said the decision indicated that the authorities were seeking a face-saving way to end the case without admitting that it had been falsified. Ms. Kazakova was a successful real estate entrepreneur who was elected mayor of Listvyanka and pushed to revive it.

In late 2007, she repeatedly clashed with the director of a local resort that is owned by the F.S.B., the domestic successor to the K.G.B, the security and intelligence agency. She said the resort had been carrying out illegal construction that threatened the village’s heating system.

Ms. Kazakova was arrested by F.S.B. agents and accused of embezzling money from the village and of election fraud. The agency, which typically investigates major crimes and threats to national security, said the New York Times,  has never explained why it decided to look into the affairs of a village of only 1,700 people.

Officials denied that their inquiry had anything to do with her dispute with the resort.

After her arrest in March 2008, she was confined to a pretrial detention center for more than two years and denied virtually all contact with her family. Her fiancé, mother and three children, including a teenage daughter who has a neurological disease, were not allowed to see her.

Tatyana Kazakova