MOSCOW, September 18 (RIA Novosti) - The president of the Russian North Caucasus republic of Chechnya issued a statement on the government website pledging that militant leaders operating in the republic would be eliminated within a year or "starve to death."

"This is the last year for bandits and those who train them - Doku Umarov, the Muslim brothers and Hussein Gakayev, the Arab mercenary Mokhdan and other shaitans," Ramzan Kadyrov said.

Russia's North Caucasus republics, including Chechnya, have been swept by a wave of violence recently just months after the Kremlin formally ended its decade-long counterterrorism operation in Chechnya in April. The republic witnessed two brutal separatist wars in the 1990s and early 2000s.

"On every path that militants use for provisions we are laying ambushes, all the forests are surrounded. In addition, we have blocked their access to villages...so that they are likely to starve to death," he said.

Kadyrov also said that the militants daily rations consists of a can of condensed milk, they are "being driven into a corner" and are using suicide bombers to "distract attention" from the special operations.

"These people have not got any ideas. They spread noisy slogans, but they are empty words. They have no strategy. They are zombies. If before they had some kind of superficial slogans - independence, Sharia law - now their mantra is kill everyone who is not with them," Kadyrov said.

The Chechen president has, in the past, declared an amnesty for militants and in July invited leaders to fight against those remaining pockets of resistance still active in the republic.