Radzhabova sympathized with her clients. She was a member of an oversight commission that the Dagestan administration had appointed to observe the consequences of the anti-terror operation in Vremenny, after over 100 village men had complained to authorities about their looted or destroyed property. Over the course of two months, as the military conducted counter-terror raids, special operations forces destroyed 42 homes, Radzhanova said.

“This is not a professional army, they are criminals. What will the children witnessing such special operations remember about Russian soldiers? They will remember them as robbers and murderers,” Radzhabova told The Daily Beast on Friday.

Radzhabova’s long time colleague and friend Magomed Shamilov clucked his tongue as he looked at a picture of the vandalized Koran—the holy book was sliced through the middle. “This is even worse than those French cartoons, worse than a bomb—it hurts me, a Muslim believer, to look at this,” Shamilov said.