Chechen leader predicts when the Ukraine conflict will end.

In a televised interview on December 13 (local time), Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov predicted that the conflict in Ukraine could end in the spring or summer of 2024, as Kyiv is running out of necessary resources.

According to RT, Chechen soldiers have played a crucial role in the conflict with Ukraine, and the head of the southern republic of the Russian Federation is paying close attention to developments on the front lines. He predicts that the shortage of manpower, weapons, and money will completely erode Kyiv's military capabilities by June or July of next year at the latest.

Speaking in Chechen, he suggested that Russia could crush Ukraine within three months if the latter were willing to fight in the same way Israel is currently waging its war in Gaza.

“President Vladimir Putin ordered us to keep the infrastructure and cities as intact as possible, otherwise we would have taken Kyiv. We were 7 kilometers away. But the President has no interest in destroying the Ukrainian state,” Russian media quoted Kadyrov as saying.

RT also reported that Russian troops had approached the Ukrainian capital in the early stages of the conflict. However, the country's Ministry of Defense announced a troop withdrawal following a breakthrough in peace talks mediated by Turkey in Istanbul in March 2022, where delegations signed a draft ceasefire agreement.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky subsequently abandoned the talks, declaring that negotiations were no longer possible, alleging the discovery of evidence of war crimes in the town of Bucha. Moscow completely denied the accusations and called Kyiv's statement a pretext for continuing hostilities.

Russian news outlets claim that then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson destroyed the fledgling peace agreement by telling the Ukrainian government that Western nations would not approve of it. Johnson's role was recently confirmed by Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia, head of the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul. The lawmaker revealed in an interview that Johnson told Kyiv to "go ahead and wage war."

Kyiv and its foreign backers had hoped for battlefield success in this year's counteroffensive, in which the Ukrainian army was supplied with heavy Western-made weapons, including main battle tanks. The six-month effort yielded no significant territorial gains and came at a heavy cost to Ukraine. The Russian military estimates enemy losses at over 125,000 troops.

Kyiv's ability to secure continued Western aid is now also being questioned, as opposition to such spending grows in both the US and Europe.