9 Aug 2025 – In a major and unprecedented disclosure, Indian Air Force (IAF) chief Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh today confirmed that the IAF shot down five Pakistani fighter jets and a large airborne surveillance aircraft during Operation ‘Sindoor’. The air chief said a combination of long-range missiles, including India’s recently acquired S-400 Triumf air defence system from Russia, were used to take down these aerial targets.
During the Air Chief Marshal LM Katre Memorial Lecture in Bengaluru, Singh gave this first official confirmation of the scale of losses suffered by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) during the clash in May. “We have five confirmed kills and one large aircraft, which could be either an ELINT (electronic intelligence) aircraft or an AEW&C (airborne early warning and control) aircraft, which was taken on at a distance of about 300 kilometres,” he said. Singh called it a significant achievement in modern aerial warfare, describing it as “the largest ever recorded surface-to-air kill that we can talk about”.
Emphasising the role of the S-400, Air Chief Marshal Singh called the system a “game-changer”. He explained that the long range and effectiveness of the system also kept Pakistani aircraft out of the range of their long-range glide bombs, preventing them from entering Indian airspace. This official confirmation by the IAF chief sheds new light on the May conflict, which began after a terror attack by a Pakistan-based group in Pahalgam on April 22. In response, India launched Operation ‘Sindoor’, under which nine terror training camps located in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir were targeted.
Singh also highlighted the accuracy of the IAF strikes and showed ‘before and after’ satellite images of the Jaish-e-Mohammed headquarters located in Bahawalpur. The images showed that the strikes caused “hardly any collateral damage” and nearby buildings were left virtually unscathed. He attributed the success of the operation to the Indian government’s “political will” and said the IAF was given clear instructions and complete freedom. “If there were any constraints, they were self-made,” Singh said, rejecting US President Donald Trump’s claim that he used trade as pressure to force a ceasefire.
Describing the conflict as a “high-tech war”, the air chief said India inflicted so much damage in 80 to 90 hours that Pakistan “came forward and sent a message to our DGMO that they wanted to talk”. Apart from the aerial targets, Singh confirmed damage to several key Pakistani military infrastructure, including hangars for F-16 fighter jets at the Shahbaz Jacobabad airfield, two command and control centres (Murid and Chaklala) and at least six radar sites. He also said that several aircraft, including F-16s, showed signs of damage on the ground.
This official statement by the IAF contradicts Pakistan’s claims that it shot down six Indian aircraft. The statement also presents a strong national narrative against the “ghost of Balakot”, where India’s claims of precision strikes in 2019 were doubted. Singh said, “I’m very happy that this time we were able to take care of that ghost of Balakot, that we were able to tell the world what we have achieved.”
