Romanian armies in the Battle of Stalingrad the Romanian Air Corps were engaged in Operation Wintergewitter, which aimed to create a link with the Axis troops in Stalingrad. The main blow was to be delivered by the German 57th Panzer Corps; on its left flank was the Romanian 6th Corps with the Romanian 7th Corps and the Cavalry Group "General Popescu" forming the right flank. They were stopped 50 km from Stalingrad and, on 18 December, the front held by the 8th Italian Army was broken, with seven Italian divisions and the Italian Alpine Corps being encircled. On 24 December, the Red Army counterattacked, with 149,000 men
The Motherland Calls which calls on its sons and daughters to repulse the enemy and continue their further attack. "The Motherland Calls" is highly complex from an engineering point of view, due to its characteristic posture with a sword raised high in the right hand and the left hand extended in a calling gesture. The technology behind the hollow statue is based on a combination of prestressed concrete with wire ropes, a solution which can also be found in another work of Nikitin's, the Ostankino Tower in Moscow. The sculpture is hollow. Inside, the entire statue consists of separate cells or chambers, like