Afterwards, Romanenko was transferred to lead the 5th Tank Army in Operation Uranus, the Soviet counteroffensive in the Battle of Stalingrad.

Romanenko was born on 25 February 1897 at his peasant family's khutor in Poltava Governorate's Romensky Uyezd (now the village of Khustyanka in Buryn Raion).

[3] After the dissolution of the Imperial Army, in January 1918, Romanenko was elected a member of the Blagodatnentsky Volost executive committee in Stavropol Governorate, and in March became its military commissar.

In June, he organized a partisan detachment, fighting against the Volunteer Army on the Southern Front of the Russian Civil War.

[1] Taking command of the regiment in June 1920, he led it during the Polish–Soviet War in the Battle of Lwów on the Southwestern Front, and in the fall fought in the Perekop-Chongar Offensive, driving Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel's White troops out of Crimea.

[3][1][2] After spending the first months after Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, in the Far East, Romanenko was sent west to command the newly formed 3rd Tank Army in May 1942.

In January 1943, he took command of the 2nd Tank Army, fighting in Central Front's unsuccessful offensive on Oryol and Bryansk during February.

Romanenko then became commander of the 48th Army in the same month, leading it during the Battle of Kursk, Operation Kutuzov, and the Chernigov-Pripyat Offensive in the summer and early fall of 1943.

[2] In July, Romanenko was promoted to Colonel General,[3] but was replaced in command in December 1944 due to declining health.