U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be assisting Iran “a little bit,” suggesting Moscow could see it as a response to Washington’s support for Ukraine.
"I think he might be helping him (Iran) a little bit, yeah, I guess. And he probably thinks we're helping Ukraine, right?," Trump told "The Brian Kilmeade Show."
Several U.S. media outlets have reported that Russia has provided targeting information to Iran for attacking U.S. forces during the ongoing conflict.
Washington and Israel launched the offensive on Feb. 28 with strikes that killed Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, triggering a widening regional war that has rattled global energy markets and drawn missile and drone attacks across the Gulf.
"We're going to be hitting them very hard over the next week," Trump told Fox News Radio, adding that he believed Iran's leadership could eventually be toppled by its own people.
"I really think that's a big hurdle to climb for people that don't have weapons," Trump said. "I think it's a very big hurdle... It'll happen, but it probably will be, maybe not immediately."
Trump's remarks came as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Washington and Israel had already struck more than 15,000 targets since launching an air campaign against Iran on Feb. 28.
"Between our air force and that of the Israelis, over 15,000 enemy targets have been struck. That's well over 1,000 a day," Hegseth told reporters, adding that Friday would see the highest volume of strikes so far.
Hegseth said the campaign had sharply degraded Iran's ability to retaliate.
Iran's "missiles, their missile launchers and drones (are) being destroyed or shot out of the sky," he said, adding that the volume of missile attacks had fallen by 90% and drone strikes by 95%.
He also said Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei was "wounded and likely disfigured" following the Feb. 28 attack that killed his father.
