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Its time for President Obama to start using the I-word when referring to Russias assault on Ukraine. I mean invasion.

The world is witnessing a Russian invasion of a neighboring country, something that hasnt happened since the fall of the Soviet Union (except for Russias 2008 invasion of Georgia).

As U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATOs top commander, stated bluntly last week: Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air defense systems, and Russian combat troops have been moving into Ukraine. Repeatedly. What worries me the most, Breedlove told reporters in Bulgaria, is that the Russia-Ukraine border is completely porous. (Russian) forces, money, support, supplies, weapons are flowing back and forth across this border completely at will.

Yet so far, neither the president nor his European allies have been willing to call this influx an invasion. (Obama is edging closer but isnt there yet). U.S. officials fear that using the I-word would provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In fact, the opposite is true. Unless the West stops pussyfooting around Putin, the Russian leader will complete his project of dismembering Ukraine and threaten other European states.

Of course, theres a political reason for the Wests word games. If they say its an invasion, it would make people ask, Why arent you doing more? said the Atlantic Councils John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, especially since this is happening in the heart of Europe.

Washington and the European Union have imposed economic sanctions on Moscow, which have hurt a Russian economy reeling from low oil prices but havent moved Putin. U.S. and European officials have clung to the hope that sanctions will impel Putin to abide by the Minsk accord, a September deal between Kiev and Moscow. The accord was supposed to guarantee the sanctity of Ukraines borders while ensuring that Russian-speakers in Ukraines east gain autonomy and language rights something Kiev was willing to grant.

However, Russia has violated the Minsk accords from the start.

Putin has sent arms, troops and hundreds of military trainers across into Ukraine to create a proxy army in the east. Its goal: to separate the Donbass region, including the districts of Donetsk and Luhansk, from the rest of the country and link them to Russia. Many of the fighters are Russian citizens or intelligence agents who enter Ukraine in unmarked uniforms and vehicles.

Putin has recognized a fake elected government in those two districts a gross violation of the Minsk accord. He demands that Kiev negotiate with these proxies rather than their handlers in Moscow. Kiev rightly refuses.

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Ukraine: The invasion that dare not say its name