The escalation of the Ukraine crisis continues to weigh heavily on the stock markets.

The Dax opened Tuesday morning 1.8 percent weaker at 14,438 points.

At the start of the week, the leading German index had already fallen by 2.1 percent to 14,731 points on Monday, the lowest closing price in around eleven months.

"The political situation is more risky than it has been for a long time," said Thomas Altmann, portfolio manager at asset manager QC Partners.

In his view, the decisive factor now will be whether the West sees Russia's steps to recognize the breakaway territories as an invasion or not.

Among the individual values, the list of losers in the Dax was led by the shares of the healthcare group Fresenius with a minus of almost 7 percent.

The numbers were worse than expected.

The fear of sanctions and delivery failures is causing the price of oil to continue to rise.

Brent oil from the North Sea rose 3.8 percent on Tuesday morning to $99.00 a barrel (159 liters).

This is the highest level since September 2014.

The Russian ruble fell to its lowest level in more than 15 months in forex trading on Tuesday.

In turn, the dollar rises to as much as 80.58 rubles.

In the course of trading, the Russian national currency is curbing its losses again.

"With the recognition by Russian President Vladimir Putin of the two people's republics that have defected from Ukraine and with his announcement that he will send regular Russian troops there, the Russian ruler has chosen the lowest level of escalation that was possible," says Commerzbank analyst Ulrich Leuchtmann.

The escalation of the Ukraine conflict sent the stock markets in Asia plummeting on Tuesday.

According to Carlos Casanova, senior Asia economist at UBP, military intervention is now much closer, which will significantly worsen market sentiment.

Short-term volatility in markets is "relentless" from both geopolitical factors and the US Federal Reserve.

The consequences are higher oil prices, a sell-off in shares and a flight to safe investments.

In Tokyo, the leading index Nikkei 225 went down 1.71 percent to 26,450 points.

The CSI 300 index of the 300 most important mainland Chinese companies fell 1.3 percent to 4574 points.

The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong recently fell 2.9 percent to 23,465 points.