The winter campaign of 1941–1942 was the name given by Soviet military command to the period from 5 December 1941 to 7 May 1942 that marked the start of Soviet counter-offensives following the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany, Operation Barbarossa. The campaign began with the Moscow Strategic Offensive Operation (5 December 1941 – 7 January 1942) with the simultaneous Kerch-Feodosia Amphibious Operation (25 December 1941 – 2 January 1942). Although the Red Army counter-offensives forced the German army into the retreat and led to the recapture of important sites such as Tikhvin, Klin and Rostov in December 1941, the Red Army mostly failed to encircle the German units there and Germans managed to avoid significant casualties.
The operations in central and northern European Russia began with the conclusion of the Moscow counter-offensive almost simultaneously with the Oboyan–Kursk Offensive Operation (3 January 1942 – 26 January 1942), the Lyuban Offensive Operation (7 January 1942 – 30 April 1942), the Demyansk Offensive Operation (7 January 1942 – 20 May 1942), the Orel–Bolkhov Offensive Operation (8 January 1942 – 28 April 1942), and the Rzhev-Vyazma Strategic Offensive Operation (8 January 1942 – 20 April 1942).
The campaign concluded with the Barvenkovo-Lozovaya Offensive Operation (18 January 1942 – 31 January 1942), another attempt to retake Crimea during the Crimean Offensive Operation (27 January 1942 – 15 April 1942) and the Bolkhov Offensive Operation (24 March 1942 – 3 April 1942).
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