India confirms it lost fighter jets in recent Pakistan conflict

India’s military confirmed for the first time that it lost an unspecified number of fighter jets in clashes with Pakistan in May, while saying the four-day conflict never came close to the point of nuclear war.

What is important is not that the jets were downed, but why they were downed, General Anil Chauhan, Chief of Defence Staff of the Indian Armed Forces, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on May 31, while attending the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

He called Pakistan’s claims that it shot down six Indian warplanes “absolutely incorrect”, though declined to specify how many jets India lost.

“Why they were down, what mistakes were made – that (is) important,” Gen Chauhan said when asked about the fighter jets. “Numbers are not important,” he added.

“The good part is that we are able to understand the tactical mistake which we made, remedy it, rectify it, and then implement it again after two days and fly all our jets again, targeting at long range,” Gen Chauhan said.

The comments are the most direct yet from an Indian government or military official on the fate of the country’s fighter jets during the conflict with Pakistan that erupted on May 7.

Earlier in May, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said his country shot down six Indian fighter jets, an assertion that has not been independently verified.

India’s government had earlier refrained from commenting on whether it lost aircraft in the fighting.

The clash was the worst between the nuclear-armed neighbours in half a century, with both sides trading air, drone and missile strikes, as well as artillery and small arms fire along their shared border.

It was triggered by a gruesome attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir on April 22, which saw gunmen kill 26 civilians in what India called an