Khamenei Announces ‘Victory’ Over Israel, Says U.S. Strikes Caused No Significant Damage(image-X/@khamenei_ir)
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei declared that Iran’s strikes nearly brought Israel to collapse, as he declared ‘victory’ over both Israel and the United States in his first televised address since Donald Trump’s ceasefire deal. His comments come two days after a ceasefire ended a 12-day war between Iran and Israel.
In a speech broadcast on state television, Khamenei said that “nothing significant” occurred at Iran’s nuclear sites, directly contradicting U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated.”
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In a separate post on X , Khamenei congratulating his country had wrote, “I offer my congratulations on the victory over the fallacious Zionist regime.”
I offer my congratulations on the victory over the fallacious Zionist regime.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) June 26, 2025
Referring to the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities earlier in the week, Khamenei said, “The United States had to enter the war directly. It felt that if it didn’t, the Zionist regime would be completely destroyed. It entered the war in an effort to save that regime but achieved nothing.”
On June 21, U.S. forces reportedly carried out a coordinated strike using B-2 stealth bombers armed with bunker-buster munitions, along with submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles, targeting deeply buried nuclear infrastructure in central Iran. Since the operation, Trump has repeatedly called the mission a “great success,” claiming it caused significant damage to Iran’s nuclear capabilities. However, Ayatollah Khamenei’s remarks sharply contradict those claims, suggesting the damage was minimal.
Speaking at the NATO summit in the Netherlands on June 25, Trump dismissed a Pentagon intelligence report that indicated the strikes had only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months. He further accused the media of attempting to “demean one of the most successful military strikes in history.” Standing beside Trump, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed the president’s narrative, stating that the targeted nuclear evidence had been “buried under a mountain, devastated and obliterated.”
In his televised address, Khamenei also criticized Trump’s previous remarks urging Iran to surrender, calling them “too big for the mouth of the U.S. president.” He added, “For a great country and nation like Iran, the very mention of surrender is an insult.”
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The Iranian leader further warned that Tehran was prepared to strike again, threatening U.S. forces in the region: “Should any aggression occur, the enemy will definitely pay a heavy price.”
In a previous post on X, Khamenei had claimed that Iran had “delivered a heavy slap to the U.S.’s face” with its missile attack on an American military base in Qatar earlier this month.
