The Soviet Empire directly occupied every constituent “Republic” as colonies, as well as occupied the Warsaw Pact countries as satellite vassals, and used military force to put down any rebellion from their puppet nations in the Warpac. They denied the people any say in government, subverted unions into agents of the state instead of advocates for the workers, and systematically crushed any domestic political dissent using secret police.
As to whether I’m okay with consistently applying that? Sure. The last time the US fought a military conflict in order to annex a nation into empire was 1902. The Soviets did it consistently throughout their empire’s existence.