For the first time, the Indian military has officially confirmed the loss of fighter jets during its recent armed confrontation with Pakistan earlier this month.
India’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Anil Chauhan, acknowledged the incident in an interview with Bloomberg TV during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday. Referring to the four-day conflict that erupted on May 7, Chauhan admitted that Indian Air Force jets were shot down in the exchanges with Pakistan’s military.
“What matters isn’t just the fact that the jets were downed, but understanding the reasons behind it,” Chauhan said. “The encouraging part is that we identified the tactical errors, corrected them, and were able to redeploy our aircraft within two days, successfully engaging long-range targets.”
This is the first official statement from the Indian military confirming the loss of aircraft during the clash. Earlier, India had declined to comment on reports of downed jets.
Pakistan claimed to have shot down six Indian fighter jets, including three Rafale aircraft, in retaliation for what it described as India’s unprovoked attacks on civilian areas. The Indian government previously remained silent on these claims.
A day before Chauhan’s remarks, senior BJP politician Subramanian Swamy also acknowledged that five Indian jets were brought down by Pakistan. Swamy attributed the defeats to Pakistan’s use of advanced Chinese fighter jets, which he said outperformed India’s French-made Rafale aircraft.
“Pakistan used Chinese jets, which clearly had the upper hand,” Swamy said in a media interview. He was also sharply critical of the Rafale jets’ performance, calling them inadequate for India’s needs. Swamy went further, alleging corruption in the controversial Rafale deal, saying, “There was corruption in the Rafale procurement process, and it won’t be investigated as long as Modi is in power.”
Despite the severity of the confrontation—the most intense military engagement between the two nuclear-armed neighbors in decades—Chauhan confirmed that the conflict never reached the brink of nuclear escalation.
The skirmish, which involved aerial dogfights, drone and missile strikes, as well as artillery exchanges, followed a deadly attack in Pahalgam, located in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, on April 22. Twenty-six civilians were killed in the assault, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan. Islamabad has strongly denied any involvement.
