WI the Red Army stopped the German advance at the Dnieper and Daugava rivers?

This may seem ASBish, but let's say by some great miracle, or by Stalin believing his intelligence that Hitler was going to invade and planning for it. Operation Barbarossa is halted to stop at the Daugava and Dnieper rivers. This would mean that Russia proper, Eastern Ukraine, Estonia and Eastern Latvia would be spared for the moment.

How would this effect the war?
Could the Germans regain momentum?
or
Would the USSR regroup and counter-attack?

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Deleted member 1487

I doubt it could actually work unless Stalin had the 1st strategic echelon pulled back from the border and deployed on those rivers, with reserves behind them ready to fill in gaps. The Dniepr in that case could hold, but that would mean ceding everything else west of those lines, which is ASB for Stalin to accept, but the only realistic way they could hold on those lines with any sort of certainty. So the trick is getting Stalin to be willing to do that...which even with knowing about the invasion coming is still ASBs. His conception is that he could simply bog down the Germans in the first strategic echelon near the border and reserves would further ensnare them until sufficient reserves were available to throw them back. I don't think anyone was expecting the border armies to collapse like that, not even the Germans and certainly not anyone in STAVKA.
 
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