Claim: A video shows the Indian Army Chief of Staff General Upendra Dwivedi admitting that India lost six jets and 250 soldiers to Pakistan during the four-day conflict between the two countries in May 2025.
Fact: The clip of the Indian army chief is digitally altered.
Posts circulating online claim that the Indian army chief admitted India had lost six jets to Pakistan. These posts shared a video of General Upendra Dwivedi, in which he apparently admits to the losses. The description of one such post reads: “Indian #Army Chief admits losing 6 jets and 250 soldiers in war against Pakistan, says preparing for the next war against Pakistan soon”.
India-Pakistan conflict
India and Pakistan engaged in the most extensive four-day conflict in decades, bringing the two nuclear-armed nations to the brink of an all-out war in May 2025.
The conflict was triggered by the killing of at least 26 people by gunmen at a resort in Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, on 22 April. India blamed Pakistan for the attack, a claim which has been denied by Pakistan.
Following this incident, India launched missiles on what it claimed were “terrorist bases” in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and some sites in the Punjab province on 7 May. The missile attack killed 31 people, including women and children, according to an Associated Press (AP) report that cited the Pakistani military.
Both sides exchanged heavy shelling across the Line of Control (LoC), according to reports.
On the first day of the conflict, Pakistani authorities claimed they had shot down at least five Indian jets.
After the missile attack, India also sent Israeli-made Harop drones to Pakistan, which were reportedly shot down by the Pakistani military.
The conflict escalated thereafter, with both sides targeting each other’s military bases.
On 10 May, US President Trump announced a ceasefire which was then confirmed by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and later by India’s Foreign Secretary.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched keyframes from the video in the claim and found the original video of the Indian army chief titled “COAS address at IIT, Madras” posted on 10 August by “ADGPI-INDIAN ARMY”, the official YouTube channel of the Indian Army.
Comparing this original footage with the clip from the claim showed matching scenes, indicating that a small section from the former has been circulating online. The comparison of both also indicates that the video in the claim has been altered.
In the clip from the claim at timestamp 0:17, from the point where the Indian army chief finishes saying, “This non-kinetic has to be fought together”, the video speeds up and his lips do not sync with the words. This is when he appears to say [bold words here highlight the altered speech]: “This non-kinetic has to be fought together. We have already lost six jets and 250 soldiers, but we will never give up, we will learn. We have some deductions. So what are the deductions?”
However, in the original footage, he does not say that India had lost six jets. From 11:04 to 11:33 in the original video, the Indian army chief says:
“…Non-kinetic quadrant is something which you can start today. And the next war, which we are looking at, it may happen soon. And we have to prepare accordingly, as already been brought out by the director. That, in this, we have to fight this battle together. This non-kinetic has to be fought together. So what are the deductions?
That as for a whole nation approach will be there for the next war. It is not the military alone that will be fighting, let me assure you very clearly this issue. As for the grey zone, it’s ever-present. This will remain.”
This proves that the clip circulating online has been digitally altered.
Soch Fact Check also analysed the video through Hiya Deepfake Voice Detector, a tool that can “identify AI voices with just 1.5 seconds of audio and alert users of an AI voice scam in real-time.”
Playing the altered section of the clip repeatedly over the software’s Chrome extension gave a consistent score of 1/100, which means that the “sampled voice is likely a deepfake”.
Results from Hiya that show a certain part of the speech is likely a deepfake.
But analysis of other parts through the tool gave a consistent score of 98/100, which meant that the “sampled voice is likely authentic”. This clearly shows that only a section of the original footage of the Indian army chief was digitally altered to falsely show him confessing to India’s loss of six IAF jets in the May 2025 conflict with Pakistan.
Results from Hiya that show other parts of the clip are authentic.
Therefore, the claim that the Indian army chief admitted to losing six jets is false.
Virality
Jan Ackakzai, the former caretaker Information Minister, shared this altered clip here (archive).
The claim appeared on X here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On Facebook here, here, here, and here.
On TikTok here.
Conclusion: A video of the Indian army chief admitting that his country lost six jets to Pakistan during the May 2025 conflict is altered, and therefore, the claim is false.
Background image in cover photo: Geo News
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