In January 1943, the Luftwaffe planned to move JG 26 to the Eastern Front. The idea was to exchange JG 26 with "Jagdgeschwader" 54 (JG 54—54th Fighter Wing) which supported Army Group North. The style of combat between the two fronts was quite different and overall the experiment was not a success; I. "Gruppe" of JG 26 was the only "Gruppe" of JG 26 to serve in Russia. On 21 January, I. "Gruppe" left France and arrived in Heiligenbeil, present-day Mamonovo, on 27 January. There, the "Gruppe" received factory-new Fw 190 A-5 and A-4 aircraft. On 31 January, I. "Gruppe" moved to Riga and two days later to an airfield named Rielbitzi at Lake Ilmen. Seifert claimed his first aerial victory on the Eastern Front during the Battle of Demyansk on 16 February when he shot down an Ilyushin Il-2 ground-attack aircraft. On 23 February, Soviet forces attempted to cross Lake Ilmen by boat which were attacked by Fw 190s of the "Stabsschwarm" (headquarters flight). On a later mission that day, Seifert was credited with the destruction of an Il-2. Five days later, he claimed two aerial victories, shooting down a Bell P-39 Airacobra and Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov LaGG-3, two fighter aircraft. On 1 March, Army Group Centre began a series of local retreats codenamed Operation Büffel, eliminating the Rzhev Salient by 23 March.