WIESBADEN, Germany — With winter virtually behind them, senior American generals hosted Ukrainian army officers this week for a set of “tabletop” workouts designed to assist Kyiv map out the following stage of its battle to reclaim territory from dug-in Russian troops.

Throughout a war-game session on the headquarters of U.S. Military Europe and Africa, the army officers rehearsed a variety of choices for an offensive that Ukraine’s chief, President Volodymyr Zelensky, has been telegraphing for a while.

The classes, attended on Thursday by President Biden’s most senior generals chargeable for American efforts to assist Ukraine, have been meant to strategize, officers stated, mapping out the dangers and advantages of a wide range of strikes that Ukraine would possibly make in opposition to Russian positions within the coming months.

Ukrainian officers will in the end resolve which course to comply with, with the American army officers described as serving like a sounding board.

After one session on Thursday, Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, the supreme allied commander for Europe, praised the Ukrainian army’s “phenomenal” adaptability and stated, “We’re going to assist them adapt extra.”

The US and NATO, he stated, “can hold going so long as needed.”

The struggle video games come as Ukraine is rising from a winter that was anticipated to supply a lull in combating. However either side proceed to take heavy casualties within the Russian onslaught in opposition to the jap metropolis of Bakhmut.

Earlier this week, Mr. Zelensky appeared to sign that Ukraine was making ready for a serious offensive. He stated in a speech that he had met with prime officers within the army about preparations, in addition to about shortages in weaponry and ammunition.

Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees, attended the workouts on Thursday. In discussing them afterward, he described an enormous desk with maps and icons and different army paraphernalia meant to symbolize potential battles.

“The Ukrainians are transferring issues round on these maps to find out what’s their greatest plan of action, they usually decide the benefits and drawbacks of the dangers related,” he stated. “It’s a typical factor that every one militaries do.”

Basic Milley refused to element the choices that the Ukrainians examined in the course of the workouts. However different senior American officers, army analysts and Ukrainian officers themselves have instructed that Kyiv would possibly attempt to transfer in opposition to Russian defensive strains within the northeast or jap components of the nation, together with in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Ukraine may additionally mount an offensive within the south, focusing on the so-called land bridge that connects the Russian mainland to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014. In January, Protection Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III informed a Washington Put up columnist, Max Boot, {that a} “practical purpose for this 12 months” could be for the Ukrainians to chop the “land bridge.”

Basic Milley stated that along with offering tanks and ammunition and combating automobiles, the Biden administration was intent on serving to Ukraine’s air defenses, a job that Pentagon struggle planners deem important. Western officers have warned that if Ukraine runs out of the weaponry it has used over the previous 12 months to maintain Russian struggle planes at bay, Moscow may rapidly acquire a stronger hand.

“An important precedence the Ukrainians want proper now’s air protection,” Basic Milley stated. “That’s what President Zelensky has requested for — the power to proceed to defend the airspace of Ukraine in opposition to the Russian onslaught by Russian plane and missile assault.”

Through the course of the struggle, Russian pilots haven’t ventured far past their very own borders into Ukrainian airspace as a result of Kyiv, utilizing a wide range of air protection methods coupled with early warning intelligence from the USA, has managed to make the skies above Ukraine a hazard zone for Russian warplanes.

Earlier this week, one other member of the Joint Chiefs of Employees was in Germany to evaluation U.S. help to Ukraine’s military. Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, chief of the Nationwide Guard Bureau, visited the Military coaching space in Grafenwöhr, the place troopers from the New York State Nationwide Guard and different American troops are instructing Ukrainian forces.

Basic Hokanson spent a number of hours at Camp Kherson, a portion of the coaching space named after town in southern Ukraine the place Ukrainian forces achieved a serious victory over Russian troops final fall. “We’re delivering the coaching they’ve requested for, and the coaching they want,” he stated in an electronic mail on Thursday.

Below Pentagon pointers, Basic Hokanson was not allowed to explain intimately the coaching he noticed. The restrictions mirror the Biden administration’s issues about escalating tensions with Russia over U.S. involvement within the struggle or triggering a wider battle with the West.

The U.S. has carried out coaching at Grafenwöhr for years, with restricted instruction for Ukrainian forces starting final 12 months, shortly after the Russian invasion.

At first, the coaching centered particularly on a number of weapons methods equipped by the USA, such because the howitzer. However beginning in January, the Pentagon started broadening the coaching to organize Ukrainian troops to launch an offensive or counter any surge in Russian assaults, as is occurring now alongside a number of hundred miles of entrance strains.

The five-week course is meant to show Ukrainian troops find out how to transfer and coordinate company- and battalion-size items on the battlefield, synchronizing the usage of artillery, armor and floor forces in what the army calls mixed arms coaching.

The U.S. armed forces have educated over 1,000 Ukrainians since January, bringing the entire educated since final February to simply over 4,000 troops, senior Pentagon officers stated this week.

Nationwide Guard troopers have performed a necessary function in serving to practice Ukraine courting again three a long time. Ukrainian pilots have additionally educated with the California Air Nationwide Guard, each in California and in Ukraine.

Helene Cooper reported from Wiesbaden, Germany, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.