With moves rejecting rising prices of staple foodstuffs such as cooking oil, meat and eggs, several areas of Iran have witnessed recent protests beginning in early May/May, some

of which saw shops attacked and fires set, The last week of the same month saw night movements in several cities following the collapse of a building in Abadan, southwestern Iran's Khuzestan province, in an incident that killed 37 people

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said during a speech on the 33rd anniversary of Imam Khomeini's departure in the presence of political and military officials and a crowd of Iranians, for the first time after a two-year hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic that "The enemy relies on popular protests to strike the Islamic regime through psychological action, the Internet, money and mercenaries." and continued, "Americans and Westerners have already miscalculated on several issues

Against the backdrop of Tehran's detention of two Greek oil tankers in Gulf waters for "irregularities committed by them without explaining their nature, the Supreme Leader refused to accuse Greece of Iran of" piracy "after Athens announced that it would hand over Iranian oil to Washington on board a tanker it was holding. "Iranian oil was stolen off Greece, and then the brave people of the Islamic Republic stopped an enemy oil tanker," Khamenei said. The enemy "accuses Iran of theft through propaganda in its media, but you stole our oil."

On 27 May, the Revolutionary Guard announced the detention of two Greek tankers in the Persian Gulf. " Greece was quick to accuse Iran of "piracy", calling on its citizens to avoid travelling to it. This followed Greece's announcement that it would deliver an Iranian oil cargo to the United States, which imposes sanctions on the export of crude from Iran.