What the hell is going on in Russia?

While much of the attention on Russia lately has been over its backing of airstrikes in Syria, particularly in the city of Aleppo, there are several other strange things afoot in Putin's empire.

There's been no shortage of mysterious activity in Russia over the past few weeks, not to mention the country's alleged role in recent email hacks that are playing a part in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

And the plot thickened on Monday when the UK bank accounts of the Kremlin-run television station Russia Today (RT) were frozen, with speculation the UK government was somehow involved.

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But, with Russia, it's always tough to separate fact from fiction. And while some stories are simply the fault of bad translations and a race for headlines, there's enough present tension over Russian involvement in Syria to give some stories a certain level of veracity.

Here are some of the dominant storylines from Russia and what, if anything, we can discern about what's really going on.

Homeward bound

Last week, the Daily Mail published a story reporting that Russian president Vladimir Putin had ordered home all Russian officials who were living abroad or face punishment in the form of jeopardizing future promotions.

Citing another UK tabloid, The Daily Star, the Mail story claims that the call home was to prepare for some sort of war, quoting on "analyst" as saying, “This is all part of the package of measures to prepare elites to some ‘big war’."

But "war" in this instance probably doesn't mean what these publications claim it does. The Mail story's primary source is a story from a Russian news website called Znak. When running the story through Google Translator, the Znak story does contain the aforementioned analyst's quote about "war."

But a closer reading of the Znak story -- albeit in the broken, unsteady English of the automated translation -- reveals that the "war" likely isn't a military one but, rather, a cultural one.

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The story's primary focus is a concern for the children of overseas officials raised and educated in foreign countries and the concern that these children will grow into less patriotic adults. Among those mentioned in the story are children rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov and foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.

Znak's story also says that the order wasn't a demand by Putin's office but, rather, an "informal request."

But, when paired with other stories making the rounds, it's easy to see why a new wave of Russian panic is setting in.

Preparing for disaster

Upwards of 40 million Russians recently participated in a three-day civil defense drill. ABC News reported Russian Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov as saying the exercise was meant to "raise government efficiency while dealing with the consequences of large-scale emergencies."

Others are taking a more alarmist approach and citing the recent tensions between Russia and the U.S. over Syria as the inspiration for the drills, claiming Russia is responding to a new threat of nuclear war.

To be fair, it's hard to know what the Russians' true intentions are with this drill and what kind of messages they may be sending. As The Daily Beast notes in a piece on the drills, it could be legitimate emergency preparation or a "message" of aggression aimed at the U.S.

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And, as ABC News notes, there's plenty of nuclear rhetoric, including television ads asking residents to be aware of their nearest bomb shelter, being bandied about in Russia.

But some analysts see it more as posturing than any real threat. Aleksander Baunov, of the Carnegie Moscow Center, told ABC the rhetoric was "ridiculous" and military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer told the network, "The good news is no one really wants a war. But it’s going to be a good show."

A statement by Puchkov's office said the drills were to prepare for "large natural and man-caused disasters in the Russian Federation." But the news that new fallout shelters are being built and assessed in Russia certainly adds to the murky nature of the drills.

Cyber warfare

Ratcheting tensions up between the U.S. and Russia -- and feeding into these concerns over an armed conflict -- is a very real ongoing battle between the two superpowers: cyber warfare.

On Friday, NBC News reported that the CIA is planning a covert cyber attack on Russia in response to recent email hacks of Democratic Party officials. The hacks, which aimed to affect the outcome of the upcoming U.S. presidential election, have been blamed on Russian hackers.

That story picked up more steam over the weekend when, appearing on Meet The Press, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden underscored the threat of retaliation, saying, “We have the capacity to do it. He’ll know it. And it will be at the time of our choosing. And under the circumstances that have the greatest impact.”

For his part, Putin seemed unperturbed by the threats, telling reporters over the weekend, “You can expect anything from our American friends."

He continued:

But what did he say that was new? Don’t we know that official bodies of the United States are spying and eavesdropping on everyone? The only new thing is that for the first time the United States has recognised at the highest level … that they themselves do it [cyber-attacks].”

As for the allegations about Russian involvement in the election, via the email hacks, Putin said, “I would like to reassure everyone, including our US partners and friends – we do not intend to influence the US election campaign."

Other Kremlin officials seemed to be issuing threats right back at U.S. officials, calling the threats “borderline insolence."

This cyber warfare storyline is, obviously, the one with the most verifiable information. And it's the story that, alongside tensions over Syria, will continue to feed into the heightened speculation, pushing worries and rhetoric between the U.S. and Russia to levels not seen since the Cold War.