WASHINGTON, June 26. /TASS/. The Western attempts to ‘bleed Russia’ using the Kiev regime ‘have failed abjectly,’ there will be nothing left of Ukraine if the settlement process doesn’t start soon, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell and retired US Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson told TASS.

"US, NATO, and other western allies' support for the war in Ukraine against Russia is insane. It is killing Ukraine's soldiers for a hopeless cause - other than making money for US and European defense contractors and generating a brutal attempt through proxies to bleed Russia," Wilkerson said.

"That latter objective, heinous as it is, has failed abjectly to be achieved," he pointed out. "In fact, Russia is clearly winning," the military analyst said.

"If a ceasefire is not declared and a genuine peace conference convened soon, there will be little left of Ukraine to salvage," the former defense official said, hinting that the so-called Burgenstock peace conference, which was held on June 15-16 at the initiative of the West, turned out to be a fiasco. No BRICS member state signed the final document of the meeting.