It's just filler. The anime is less than 10 episodes behind the manga right now and have to give Kishi time to write the story. They have three options right now.
1. Continue with filler to give the manga time to advance,
2. Go the way of Dragonball Z and draw out everything with episode recaps and drawn out attacks (seriously, five episodes to charge the Spirit Bomb), or
3. Stop a airing new episodes and go on a prolonged break.
I personally don't mind the new filler. It is related to the overall story and provides insight into the various battles that the manga just glanced over. Plus, it looks like the next five episodes are going to shed light on the Reanimation Jutsu and Kabuto's incorporation of all of the abilities that he absorbed from everybody. I'm more confused by the most recent episode, though. I guess Hidan is dead, but its awesome that he's back (being an Edo zombie doesn't really benefit him, though).