With each day the possibility of miscalculation on either side grows larger.
A flare-up on a base, a rogue soldier at a checkpoint - any of these scenarios have the capacity to provide sparks to a highly combustible situation.
President Vladimir Putin has always been a cold-headed chess player when it comes to foreign policy but with the stakes so high this could easily become more of a gamble.
The Kremlin has already made a substantial point about its military might and its geopolitical spheres of influence but does President Putin have an endgame?
Where can he stop and how can he get out without losing face?
A simple withdrawal is not much of an option.
A stand-off is under way between Russian and Ukrainian forces in Crimea It may be that we have already seen the template of this plan in Georgia - a country Russia invaded in 2008.
South Ossetia and Abkhazia have now been carved away and are for all intents and purposes parts of Russia in all but name.
Is that the plan for Crimea?
Certainly the peninsula is of far greater importance to Moscow than either of those other territories.
Crimea was part of Russia during Soviet times and was only given to Ukraine in 1954 by the then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
The occupation is troubling, but what will represent a massive escalation is if Russia moves in to mainland Ukraine and tries to take over - or perhaps absorb the pro-Russian regions, again on the pretext of protecting ethnic Russians.
The situation with Crimea is delicate but controllable because it is a peninsula and predominantly ethnic Russian.
On the mainland it would be easy for Ukrainians and Russians to rub up against each other and light the flames of war.
If that is Putin's next move it would be the point when the chess player became the gambler.
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