“Our patience is wearing thin.” Trump called Iran’s supreme leader an “easy target”

The US President Donald Trump has called Iranʼs Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei an easy target — there is information about where he is hiding. However, he will not be killed "for now". Trump talks about "unconditional surrender".

The American leader made all these statements on his social network Truth Social.

"He is an easy target, but is safe there — we are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin," Trump wrote.

He added that there is now complete and absolute control over Iranʼs skies. He says Iran has good air defense, but it is no match for the US: "Nobody does it better than the US."

What preceded

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not rule out an assassination attempt on Iranʼs supreme leader. The politician said the day before that he believes that a strike on Iranʼs supreme leader Ali Khamenei would not lead to an escalation, but on the contrary, would put an end to the current conflict between Israel and Iran.

When asked if Israel was indeed targeting Iranʼs supreme leader, Netanyahu replied: "We are doing what we think is necessary."

The Israeli prime ministerʼs comments followed reports by Reuters and Fox News on June 15 that Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to assassinate Iranʼs Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, citing American sources.

Immediately after these publications, Netanyahu stated that "there are many false reports about conversations that never happened."

“And I think the United States knows what’s good for the United States,” he added at the time.

Whatʼs happening in the Middle East?

On the night of June 13, Israel attacked the center of Iranʼs nuclear, missile, and military infrastructure. After that, Iran announced that it would not participate in negotiations with the United States on its nuclear program, scheduled for June 15. On the evening of June 13, Iran responded by attacking Israel with ballistic missiles.

Already on June 14, Israel announced that it had gained air superiority from Western Iran to Tehran.

As of June 17, the countries continue to exchange blows — previously, in the Israeli city of Bat Yam, where an Iranian missile hit a house on June 14, five Ukrainians were killed. Among them were three children.

Israel has already asked the Administration of the US President Donald Trump to join the war with Iran to destroy the Iranian nuclear program.

Iranʼs nuclear program

The Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2015 by the US, UK, Russia, France, China, Germany and the EU. They agreed that the Iranian authorities would give up their nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

In 2018, then-US President Donald Trump withdrew the country from the Iran nuclear deal and launched a "maximum pressure" campaign: new sanctions against the Iranian regime in order to obtain significant concessions from it.

Tehran resumed uranium production after Trump pulled out of the deal. Under Joe Biden’s presidency, Iran’s nuclear program has “advanced significantly,” Axios noted.

The Biden administration has been conducting indirect talks with Iran to revive the Iran nuclear deal. Those efforts collapsed in late 2022 when the United States accused Iran of making “unfounded” demands related to an International Atomic Energy Agency investigation into unexplained traces of uranium found at undisclosed Iranian sites. In the months that followed, the Trump administration maintained that the Iran nuclear deal was “off the table”.

After being re-elected for a second term, Trump renewed his “maximum pressure” campaign. In March, Axios reported that the US president had given Iran two months to reach a new nuclear deal.

On June 12, the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) accused Iran, for the first time in nearly 20 years, of failing to meet its obligations regarding international nuclear safeguards.

Earlier, on May 31, the Agency reported that Iran had almost doubled its stockpile of 60% enriched uranium since February. This brings it closer to the level of almost 90% needed for nuclear weapons. It now has about 408 kilograms of such uranium — enough to make nine nuclear bombs if the country continues to enrich uranium.

For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine, please follow us on X.