THE EUROPEAN CHESSBOARD: Here's A Map Of The Russia-NATO Confrontation

The war in eastern Ukraine is in a state of ceasefire, but if the past seven months are any indication, this halt in hostilities won't spell the end of the most severe geopolitical crisis between Russia and the west since the end of the Cold War.

In the economic and diplomatic realm, Russia is attempting to choke off Ukraine's supply of natural gas as the EU and the US ratchet up sanctions on Moscow.

And the fight continues on the battlefield, in spite of the ceasefire - seven Ukrainian soldiers were killed in a separatist attack on Sept. 29, at the same time the Ukrainian army continued its shelling of rebel positions in Donetsk.

Yet eastern Ukraine is just one hotspot along a larger, continent-wide fault line. The border between Russia and NATO-allied Europe is dotted with pockets of instability including several separatist regions that Moscow and its allies support. The fact that Russia and the NATO states possess all but around 550 of the world's estimated 17,100 nuclear weapons only raises the stakes.

This map depicts the larger confrontation between Russia and NATO and the possible return to Cold War power dynamics in Europe.