One of the most widely-discussed issues in the last week is the controversy surrounding the feminist punk band “Pussy Riot.” For those who were not aware, the three members of this band recently staged a protest in a Russian Orthodox church in the middle of mass. They were hoping to bring awareness to what they see as an increasingly aggressive and power-hungry President Putin. It was just announced that each member of the band has been sentenced to two years in prison on charges of “hooliganism.”

While their protest may have been in poor tastes, this is obviously an alarming development. It is no secret that Putin has been cracking down on opposition in Russia, and giving three young women a lengthy prison sentence for staging a protest is another sign that Russia is moving back toward its totalitarian past.

To get more information on these alarming developments in Russia, I turned to Freedom House, one of the most respected authorities on the state of freedom in the world. In their annual report they combine a number of factors to give every country a ranking of either “free,” “partly free,” or “not free.” In their 2012 report, Russia earned the dubious distinction of being “not free.” One of the most significant issues in that country is state control of the media, and Freedom House notes that “in Russia, the state-controlled media bombarded domestic audiences with predictions of chaos and instability as a consequence of the Arab protests, with a clear message that demands for political reform in Russia would have similarly catastrophic results.” Using the media to distort the image of the Arab Spring is alarming, but fits the trend of censorship and distortion in an increasingly state-run Russian media.

My most obvious concern here is for the people of Russia. But what about the possible impact on regional and international stability? Some have argued that this is a positive development in that area – they claim that a stable Russian government will maintain control of their sizable nuclear arsenal and serve as a firewall against those who would push the country into conflict. While this is a valid point, it does not account for what happens after Putin. I may be in the minority on this, but recent evens should suggest that totalitarian regimes no longer have the “shelf life” they once did. The rise of the internet and mass-communications make it easy for opposition groups to both organize in their own country and network with those in others. This is what brought down deeply-entrenched governments in the Middle East and could very well bring down the Putin regime in Russia. Freedom House even indicated that the state-run media feared that very thing.

If Putin entrenches himself further, who will fill the power vacuum after he leaves? What if Russia ends up like Egypt, where Mubarak has been replaced by military leaders who are reluctant to cede control to a democratically-elected government? This would be particularly dangerous in Russia, where there are known Soviet loyalists and ultra-nationalists in the military leadership. This instability in a nuclear-armed state could post a grave danger to the rest of the world. Russia made a miraculous transition from the Soviet regime to the government of Boris Yeltsin in the early 1990’s, but we should not bank on that happening a second time.

The good news is that hope is not lost in Russia….yet. There are still elements of opposition in both the Russian government and Russian civil society, and taking down Putin now would not mean the collapse of the state. Though it is flawed, there is still a democratic infrastructure in place that could facilitate an easy return to (at least quasi-) democratic government. If Putin continues on his current trajectory, though, there is a good chance that will be lost completely. The window is closing quickly, but the people of Russia still have a chance to stop the country’s descent into totalitarianism.