The successful Red Army surprise counter-offensive in front of Moscow, which began on 5 December, was the second most significant battle of the entire war.

The Russians would have bad defeats later, and the Germans would suffer much greater losses at Stalingrad in 1942–43. But the setback at Moscow meant that the Blitzkrieg strategy of Hitler and his generals had failed; the USSR would not be knocked out of the war in just a few months.

The northern and central parts of the Soviet front now held firm. And the Third Reich could not win a war of attrition.