Neither India nor Pakistan has officially released any figures regarding the number of jets shot down or destroyed during the May 2025 conflict. Yet conflicting numbers continue to surface — all from a single source: US President Donald Trump.
Each time Trump recalls how he used trade and his deal-making abilities to prevent a nuclear war in May 2025, he trots out a new figure on the fallen jets.
On Thursday, Trump again said that he threatened 200 per cent tariffs on India and Pakistan if they didn't stop the fighting last summer. He then claimed that 11 jets were shot down during the conflict, mere weeks after pegging the figure at 10.
"We said these are two very powerful, two nuclear nations. And I don't want to say what was going to happen, but, you know, bad things happen. So, Prime Minister (Modi), I want to thank you, because that was a very big deal. People have no idea. A lot of them say, ‘Oh, well, they weren't fighting’. They were fighting, 11 jets were shot down, very expensive jets, and they were all in. Both of them were all in, and now they're not," Trump said while addressing an event of the Board of Peace in Washington.
The ever-changing figure
Trump's latest claim that 11 jets were shot down during Operation Sindoor contradicts his own statements from the past.
In July 2025, Trump had claimed that "five jets were shot down" during the conflict. By September-October, the number had risen to “seven brand-new beautiful planes.” In November, it became “eight planes,” sometimes described as seven shot down and one badly damaged.
Then, earlier this month, Trump said that as many as 10 jets were shot down during the conflict.
The figure appears to change with each of Trump’s retellings of the conflict, undermining the credibility of the claim and suggesting it is more rhetorical than rooted in empirical facts.
India's position
While India has acknowledged suffering some losses during the conflict, it has not disclosed whether it lost any aircraft — or, if so, then how many. Initially, Pakistan said it shot down some five or six Indian jets, but did not provide any evidence to back its claims.
Trump has claimed credit for stopping the India-Pakistan conflict more than 80 times since May 10 last year, when he announced on social media that the two neighbours had agreed to a “full and immediate” ceasefire after talks mediated by the US.
India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 last year, targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians.
India has been consistently maintaining that the understanding on cessation of hostilities with Pakistan was reached following direct talks between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two militaries.
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