MOSCOW, April 17 (RIA Novosti) - Once the world's largest statue, the colossal Motherland Calls monument in Volgograd is in danger of a catastrophic end to its more than four-decade-long existence, Russian media said on Friday.

Government specialists have said that the statue in the south Russian city, formerly known as Stalingrad, is in urgent need of reconstruction work to prevent it from crumbling.

The statue, portraying a heroic sword-wielding Russian woman, is 85 meters (279 feet) high and commemorates the 200-day-long WWII Battle of Stalingrad. A local woman is reported to have posed for the sculpture.

The monument took eight years to complete, and towers over the Mamayev Kurgan WWII memorial complex.

Stalingrad, as the city was known until 1961, was the site of a pivotal WWII battle from July 1942 to February 1943 that eventually saw Soviet troops turn back advancing German forces, inflicting the first major defeat on Hitler's armies.

Combined military deaths alone during the battle are estimated at around 1.5 million, and the city was almost entirely razed to the ground. Some 40,000 civilians also died as the battle raged.

The city was renamed during Nikita Khrushchev's period of "de-Stalinization."