War is nigh…or already here? The rift between Russia and Ukraine got more extreme on Monday, as Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was sending Russian troops into eastern Ukraine. While that might sound like an invasion is already starting, onlookers have been cautious about describing it as such.

"Europe edged closer to war on Monday," wrote Yahoo News White House Correspondent Alexander Nazaryan. The Associated Press reported that "a long-feared Russian invasion of Ukraine appeared to be imminent Monday, if not already underway."

The confusion seems to have come from Putin's wording, which did not make clear if the troops were already on their way into separatist regions in Eastern Ukraine or simply about to be and, regardless, described their presence not as an invasion but a "peacekeeping" mission. "The developments came during a spike in skirmishes in the eastern regions that Western powers believe Russia could use as a pretext for an attack," notes the A.P.

Fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine's Donbas region has been going on since 2014.

"I consider it necessary to take a long-overdue decision: To immediately recognize the independence and sovereignty of Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic," Putin said on Monday.

Putin's "combative address" was "a nearly hourlong recitation of decades worth of historical grievances and an unmistakable challenge by Moscow to the post-Cold War international order dominated by the West," says the Wall Street Journal. "The speech, ostensibly aimed at recognizing the independence of two breakaway statelets that Russia carved from Ukraine in 2014, outlined Mr. Putin's view that Ukraine was a historical accident that the U.S. has turned into a launchpad to attack Russia."

(For a play-by-play of Putin's speech, see this Twitter thread from Dmitri Alperovitch, the Russian-American founder of CrowdStrike and The Alperovitch Institute at Johns Hopkins University.)

The U.S. responds. In response to Putin's Monday announcements, President Joe Biden issued an executive order banning trade and investment between Americans and those in "the so-called Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) or Luhansk People's Republic (LNR) regions."

"This E.O. is distinct from the swift and severe economic measures we are prepared to issue with Allies and partners in response to a further Russian invasion of Ukraine," the White House said in a statement. "The United States will not hesitate to use its authorities to target those supporting efforts to undermine Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Update: On Tuesday morning, the White House began calling what Russia is doing in Ukraine an invasion. "We think this is, yes, the beginning of an invasion, Russia's latest invasion into Ukraine," Jon Finer, principal deputy national security adviser, said. "An invasion is an invasion and that is what is underway."

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen called Putin's announcement "a blatant violation of international law."

The bigger picture. Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan—a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, prominent hawk, and ardent defender of the U.S.-led postwar order—offers a depressing analysis for what this could mean: first, a full takeover of Ukraine and then a realignment of the international order. "It is wishful thinking to imagine that this conflict stops with Ukraine," Kagan writes:



His predictions are far from assured, but represent a common thread in centrist-hawk concerns.

The Post editorial board also offers a gloomy short-term prognosis:



The Cato Institute's Alex Nowrasteh points out that European countries are going to see a surge of Ukrainian refugees: