The interesting thing is, both sides, strategically, need to stall in order for their plans to be successful. If Russia just flat out invades Ukraine, sending in all it's troops, than Russia will just take them over. So, NATO wants to stall the situation so they can boost Ukraine's military, sufficiently, to resist such an attack. Only, arming Ukraine is potentially provocation for an attack, so they will test the waters with non-lethal aid, and continue to boost it until Ukraine is to a point where they can defend themselves, sufficiently enough to halt a Russian advance. They've been given some 20 billion dollars, compared to their original 2 billion a year spending, so Ukraine should have some serious room for improvement. If given sufficient time, Ukraine will be able to mount a defense that could stall a Russian invasion, long enough, to allow allied powers to attack them. Obviously though, cash doesn't turn into weapons overnight.
Russia on the other hand, obviously doesn't want the appearance of being directly involved, without provocation. They ultimately want to take over Ukraine, but if they just rushed it, they'd obviously be the bad guys. Furthermore, the quicker it's over, the more likely they'll lose other gains, such as Crimea, when they have to make concessions after ultimately losing to the U.S. and allies. They are also building up their military, jumping from 60 billion a year to 90 billion to 100 billion in a very short amount of time. Russia wants to at least keep Crimea, so, all out war isn't in their favor, since they would likely lose in the long run.
All out war is really in no-one's favor, due to the high casualties that might ensue.
Both sides are also acting through proxies, instead of directly fighting. Ukraine isn't even a NATO state. And we can't forget of course, the ever looming threat of nuclear weapons.
For this and other reasons, I'd say this is more like a cold war. The only question is, who is able to achieve their objectives before their enemies?