Writing in the New Republic, Usam Basyaev has some final words about the work and life of the human rights advocate Natalia Estemirova.  Basyaev points to the sometimes diverging viewpoints held by Estemirova and her colleague Anna Politkovskaya.

What motivated Natasha Estemirova? Why did she do this work that led eventually to her death? She did this for nearly 17 years, having started in 1992 during the Osset-Ingush conflict. I don’t think that patriotism, at least as it is generally understood, was her motivation. She didn’t have well-defined political views. She was neither a supporter nor an opponent of Chechen independence. She wanted political questions to be resolved without blood, without shooting, without suffering and killing. She was interested in politics only when this would help her to resolve her human rights cases successfully, to the small degree that this is still possible in Russia.