SINGAPORE – At the May 30 through June 1 Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore, senior Indian defense officials finally provided information about the early May confrontation between the Indian and Pakistani armed forces in Kashmir.
In media interviews on Saturday, May 31, India’s Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan admitted his Air Force had lost fighter jets on the initial day of the conflict, June 7.
“What is important is not the jet being down, but why they were being downed,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “What mistakes were made—those are important. Numbers are not important. The good part is that we were able to understand the tactical mistake which we made, remedy it, rectify it, and then implement it again after two days and flew our jets again, targeting at long range,” he explained.
Chauhan called Pakistan’s claims that it had downed six Indian fighter aircraft “absolutely incorrect.” Still, he declined to discuss any details of either the numbers or types lost in these Day One engagements.
Operation Sindoor, as the Indian armed forces called it, was launched by India early on May 7 with the mission to destroy what New Delhi had labeled as “nine terror infrastructures in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).”
These Indian military strikes were made in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 tourists. Indian authorities have described the killings as “cold-blooded” murders of these tourists. Moreover, India claims they were all killed after they had been separated into groups by their religious affiliations.
What Aircraft Were Lost
Earlier in May, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif claimed his country had shot down six Indian fighter jets, three of them being the advanced French-made Dassault Rafale omnirole fighter. This claim, however, had never been independently verified.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) had previously purchased 36 of these aircraft at a cost of about US $9 billion after the aircraft had been selected as the winner of a major tender for the Medium-MultiRole Fighter Aircraft (M-MRCA) program. It is one of the most capable aircraft in IAF inventory.
Pakistan had sought to buttress the claim of having shot down six IAF fighters by painting up some of its Chinese-made Chengdu J-10C aircraft with “kill marks” on the forward fuselage below the cockpit. These silhouettes of different IAF aircraft appeared to show three Rafales, one Dassault Mirage 2000—both manufactured in France—and two Russian-design models: one Mikoyan MiG-29 and one Sukhoi Su-30MKI.
These kills, however, did not happen, said a long-time Indian air power expert who spoke with me. Pakistan, as he explained, is famous for “dressing up their aircraft this way as part of a psychological warfare campaign”—an assertion made as well in Asian defense publications.
The real losses, according to this source and one other who spoke on condition of anonymity, were one Rafale, one Mirage, and one MiG-29—a total of three. One of the sources said there could have possibly been a fourth—an Su-30MKI—lost as well “as that aircraft has a fairly large radar signature,” but both individuals had less confidence on that point.
What Happened Next
The loss of a Rafale is unexpected, given the capabilities of that aircraft’s electronic warfare suite. However, the same sources stated that the Rafale, the Mirage, and the MiG were almost certainly shot down as a result of a violation of the Rules of Engagement (ROE) that had long been observed between the IAF and the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). Both forces had been adhering to these restrictions until the night of May 7.
The ROE called for neither side to target and fire on the other nation’s aircraft as long as they stayed on their side of the line of control. The decision by Pakistan to fire on and shoot down the IAF aircraft while still in Indian airspace was a violation of that “gentlemen’s agreement.”
The following three days, 8-10 May, in the words of Chauhan, “we were able to do precision strikes on heavily air-defended airfields of Pakistan deep 300 kilometers inside, with the precision [CEP] of a meter.” the Indian military chief said.
One source explained that the losses to Pakistan were “significant” during these three days and lopsided in India’s favor. Almost all the Pakistan aircraft were also supposedly destroyed while they were still on the ground.
“We are talking about an aerial and situation awareness dominance on the order of the Bekaa Valley ‘turkey shoot’ [in 1982] or the Israel-Egypt Six-Day War [in 1967],” he stated.
According to him and the other source, the total damage done by India’s counterattacks was not just the destruction of large numbers of Pakistan aircraft but also hangars, runways, and other air base facilities.
The PAF may have thought they had some bragging rights after downing the IAF fighters, they both explained, but “in the end, they suffered considerable losses for the sake of just three Indian aircraft taken out. Not much of a trade-off in the end.”
How Well Did Chinese Weapons Work?
In his interview in Singapore, Chauhan had also refuted Pakistan’s assertions about the combat performance of the Chinese-made and other foreign weaponry they had fired against the IAF, saying that in the end, many of these Chinese systems “didn’t work.”
Previously, sources from another Asian country had made this claim and had stated a “high percentage of the missiles fired by Pakistan at Indian targets missed and landed more or less intact on Indian territory without self-destructing. This has been a technical intelligence bonanza for the IAF.”
The two Indian sources not only confirmed this fact but added that they had seen some of the recovered weaponry. These systems included not only some of the latest Chinese-made air-to-air missiles but also surface-to-air missiles employed in the HQ-9 air defense system. This SAM system is a reverse-engineered Chinese copy of the Russian-made S-300, also known as the Almaz Antei.
Several years ago, at the massive Air Show China in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, I had the chance to speak with two aviation technical intelligence analysts from a NATO country who were also attending the expo. They were seeing all of the same Chinese weaponry I was—including these same models of missiles that were fired by Pakistan this past month and failed to detonate.
“This equipment all looks impressive,” one of them said. “But we are waiting to see how it actually works. From what we can see a lot of it is not ‘battle-worthy.’” An assessment that apparently turns out to have been correct.
About the Author:
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.

Horsemen
June 3, 2025 at 9:35 pm
Hmm, normally I prefer not to spoil the fun of ‘fortyfive authors, but in the village of akalia kalan in Punjab, an unidentified plane crashed in the early morning hours of may 7 2025 with witnesses saying two (2) pilots who were slightly injured were seen taken to hospital by army soldiers.
Now which plane (in the IAF) carries two pilots.
David Chang
June 4, 2025 at 6:04 am
God blesses people in world.
Thank you for your investigative report.
There are many rumors and diplomacy statements about the civil war of India-Pakistan this year.
We only know that some India fighter planes were lost in this war, whether they were destroyed by friendly or enemy fire.
But the problem of this war is that India launched a strategic offense on Pakistan. Although India said that was to counter the strategic offense that Pakistan had launched and wanted to avoid more strategic operations, neither people in India nor Pakistan want to surrender to God, nor confess their sins, but only want to fight for the victory of People.
The people in one-India should repent to God, because India scholars have promoted socialism to people since the early 20th century, causing the people in India to believe Islam socialism and causing the Pakistan socialism independence war, and thus interacting with the Afghanistan socialism party, they are mentors of Osama bin Laden.
May God has mercy on people.
Sam
June 4, 2025 at 9:52 pm
While I found Mr. Johnson’s analysis quite balanced, I found the following sentences ” Indian authorities have described the killings as “cold-blooded” murders of these tourists. Moreover, India claims they were all killed after they had been separated into groups by their religious affiliations.” quite troubling. Is the author suggesting that the loss on Indian lives in the terrorist attack, and the fact they were all Hindus and one Christian, a figment of the Indian government’s official briefing on the matter?