In a conference, on March 19, 2014, at Chatham House (London), Michael Ignatieff analyzed the recent events in Ukraine, the risks involved in Putin’s interpretation of the Right to Protect (RtP) as Legitimaton for Regime Change (LtC) -exactly what the West did in Lybia, in his own words- and the conditions both for the RtP and the LfC requiered in order to mantain legality, peace and stability.

He rejected the use of the term «New Cold War» to describe what is happening between Russia and the West today.

«We are going through here an international encounter between two capitalist systems -crony capitalism both in Ukraine and Russia, but capitalism nonetheless», he said.

«What worries me the most is not real politics, but the language both sides (Russian and Ukraine leaders are using to describe History», he added.

The three criteria, according to Ignatieff, for justifying the RtP are:

1- You have to protect everybody… It should not be discriminatory

2- When basic human rights are being massively violated and

3- If democracy has been overthrown.

 About the conflict in Ukraine after the Crimean referendum, Ignatieff said:

a) It’s far from over

b) We are not even in the end of the beginning

c) The real motive of Putin’s actions is to prevent Ukraine moving into NATO’s orbyt

d) Moscow is trying to limit forever the sovereignity of Ukraine

e) My Russian grandparents are buried in Ukraine

f) Only a tiny proportion of Ukrainians helped the Wehrmacht in the killing of Jews

g) In his propagandistic campaing to justify retaking Crimea, Moscow has ignored the 7 million Ukrainians killed by the Soviet regime between 1931 and 1938

h) All countries with borders with Russia are worried now

i) Denuclearization of Ukraine in 1994 in exchange for security guarantees seems now a bitter irony to Ukrainians and some of them would like to have kept some of their nukes…