- India launched strikes into Pakistan earlier in the week, kicking off a new round of fighting.
- Pakistan said it responded with its Chinese-made fighter jets and shot down five Indian aircraft.
- The Indian aircraft have since been identified as French-made Rafales and Soviet-era fighters.
Nuclear Powers India and Pakistan are at odds again, and there have been reports of aircraft losses in air battles that appear to involve a mix of foreign-made fighters.
Pakistani officials said Thursday that the country had shot down five Indian fighter jets and several drones since India launched cross-border strikes earlier this week, sparking a new round of fighting between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, stated that the country’s air force “engaged with the Indian fighter jets in self-defense” and shot down five aircraft and an unspecified number of aerial drones.
Dar said on Wednesday that Pakistan used Chinese-made J-10C jets in response to India’s strikes the night before. According to the state-run national news agency, he identified some of the downed Indian aircraft as Rafale fighters manufactured by France.
According to reports citing Pakistan’s military, the five aircraft shot down included three Rafales and two Russian-designed fighters: a MiG-29 and a Su-30.
That’s quite a collection of fighter aircraft. Both countries fly jet designs from around the world, and conflict has the potential to bring jets together that would not otherwise engage.
Pakistan, for example, operates Chinese-made J-10s, the joint Pakistani-Chinese J-17 fighter, American-made F-16s, and French Mirages, whereas India operates French-made Rafales and Mirages, Russian-origin Su-30s, MiG-29s, and MiG-21s, UK Jaguars, and a homemade fighter jet known as the Tejas.
Pakistan claimed victories over the Indian air force with the J-10C, a single-engine, multirole aircraft manufactured by the Chinese aerospace conglomerate Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group. Pakistan received its first batch of these fighter jets, which are upgraded versions of the original J-10, in 2022. They can transport bombs, air-to-air missiles, and rockets.
Dassault Aviation, the French aerospace company, manufactures the Rafale, a twin-engine multi-mission fighter aircraft. India is one of only a few countries that operates these fighter jets, with 36 of them. It recently signed an agreement to purchase more than two dozen more for its navy.
The Mikoyan MiG-29 and the much larger Sukhoi Su-30 are twin-engine fighters developed in the Soviet Union by Russian aerospace firms. These two jets are used by dozens of countries around the world and can perform a variety of missions.
The MiG-29, introduced in the early 1980s, was designed to compete with the American-made F-15 and F-16. The Su-30 became operational in the following decade. These aircraft are a significant component of India’s air power. The country has hundreds of them.
Business Insider was unable to independently verify Pakistan’s claims that it shot down the five aircraft. The Indian defense ministry and its embassy in the United States did not respond to inquiries about the aerial engagements.
These clashes can produce unreliable information. During the 2019 conflict, India claimed that one of its MiG-21 pilots defeated a Pakistani pilot flying an F-16. The US later called this into question.
According to Reuters, US officials confirmed that in the most recent clashes, Chinese-made J-10s were used to shoot down at least two Indian aircraft.
Not just planes, but drones too
Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, a Pakistani Army spokesperson, said Thursday that Islamabad had destroyed a dozen of India’s Harop drones, which are loitering munitions or one-way attack drones loaded with explosives. Israel Aerospace Industries manufactures the weapons, which can linger over a target area before striking.
During a press conference, Chaudhry displayed images that appeared to show debris from the downed Indian drones. “The armed forces are on a high degree of alert, and neutralizing them as we speak,” declared him.
India announced on Tuesday night that it had launched strikes against nine “terrorist infrastructure sites” in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, signaling the start of a new military operation dubbed Operation Sindoor, which Islamabad has described as an act of war.
The latest round of fighting has heightened tensions between the two rivals, following a massacre in Indian-administered Kashmir last month that killed 26 people. India has long accused Pakistan of supporting cross-border terrorism, but Pakistan has denied involvement in the attack.
India’s defense ministry initially stated that no Pakistani military facilities were targeted, “reflecting India’s calibrated and non-escalatory approach.” However, on Thursday, New Delhi announced that it had targeted air defense systems and radars across the border.
Pakistan’s leadership has vowed to respond to India’s strikes, and the country has already fired mortars, artillery shells, drones, and missiles, according to New Delhi. Several people have died in both countries in the last two days.
