US expects reduced tempo in Ukraine fighting to continue for months

Ukrainian servicemen walk on a pontoon bridge across the Inhulets river in Kherson region, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2022. Picture: AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka

US intelligence expects the reduced tempo in fighting in Ukraine to continue in the next several months and sees no evidence of a reduced Ukrainian will to resist, despite attacks on its power grid and other critical winter infrastructure, the Director of National Intelligence said on Saturday.

"We're seeing a kind of a reduced tempo already of the conflict ... and we expect that's likely to be what we see in the coming months," Avril Haines told the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in California.