'Schneehase' was a German operation against partisans in the area of Polotsk, Rossony and Krasnopol in the Belorussian region of the German-occupied western part of the USSR (28 January/15 February 1943).

On this upper section of the Dvina river there were a number of vulnerable points in the supply system to Generalfeldmarschall Georg von Küchler’s Heeresgruppe 'Nord', which was under steady pressure from the General Kirill A. Meretskov’s Volkhov Front, Marshal Sovetskogo Soyuza Semyon K. Timoshenko’s North-West Front and General Polkovnik Maksim A. Purkayev’s Kalinin Front, and whose supplies were therefore a valuable target for Moscow-commanded partisans.