US President Donald Trump at a closed-door dinner with Republican lawmakers at the White House on Friday stated that "five jets were shot down" in the recent India-Pakistan hostilities after the Pahalgam terror attack. Trump, though, did not specify which side was the victim of these purported losses.
"Actually, aircraft were being shot down out of the sky. Five, five, four or five, but I believe five aircraft were shot down actually," Trump said, referring to the quick but intense military clash between the two nuclear powers.
Trump's imprecise claim brought back into focus Operation Sindoor—India's military retaliation against the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, that killed 26 people, including tourists. India retaliated with air and missile attacks in early May, triggering a four-day escalation of fighting.
Pakistan, meanwhile, has persisted in claiming that it shot down several Indian aircraft, including three French Rafales, and had captured Indian pilots. Yet Islamabad never presented any firm evidence to substantiate these claims.
On the Indian side, officials have largely avoided commenting on specific losses. But in a post-ceasefire interview, Indian Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan admitted that some aircraft were indeed lost, although he challenged Pakistan’s narrative of six Indian jets being downed.
"What matters is that, not the jet being down, but why they were being down," said General Chauhan in an interview with Bloomberg TV in May at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. "Numbers are not important."
He went on to highlight India's swift strategic reaction, adding that despite initial losses, the Indian troops improvised and carried out deep-penetration attacks with great accuracy.
We could conduct precision strikes on Pakistani airfields well defended by air deep 300 kilometres within, to the meter-precision," Chauhan said.
India has always denied losing any of its Rafale fighter jets and rejected assertions that any of its pilots were captured.
On June 15, CEO of Dassault Aviation Eric Trappier also dismissed Pakistan's account, saying in an interview with Challenges, a French magazine, "What Pakistan is telling us about shooting down three Rafales is not at all true." He continued, "What we already know is that what the Pakistanis claim to have destroyed three Rafale aircraft is false. When the full facts come out, reality could surprise many."
Trump again repeated his claim that American diplomatic efforts were instrumental in preventing the conflict, indicating that the ceasefire, announced on May 10, was negotiated through American pressure.
"We stopped a lot of wars. And these were serious, India and Pakistan, that was going on. These are two serious nuclear countries, and they were hitting each other," he said. "You know, it's like a new kind of war. You saw it just recently when you looked at what we did in Iran, where we took out their nuclear facility, completely took out that. But India and Pakistan were fighting it out, and they were back and forth, and it was building and building, and we got it settled through trade.". We said, you want to do a trade agreement. We're not doing a trade agreement if you're going to be throwing about weapons, and perhaps nuclear weapons, both extremely powerful nuclear nations.
New Delhi, though, has never accepted that account. The Indian government insists the crisis was settled bilaterally, with no third-party mediation involved, and has resisted suggestions Washington used trade talks to strong-arm a resolution.
Operation Sindoor was initiated at late hours on May 7, with coordinated efforts from India's Air Force, Navy, and Army. During the subsequent three days, India conducted a series of strikes on what it called terrorist camps and military bases within Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Addressing on May 11, Air Marshal A.K. Bharti attested that all Indian pilots had returned safely, refuting Pakistani assertions of captured personnel.
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