US President Donald Trump has said eight planes were shot down in the May 2025 clash between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India.
In an interview with a private television channel, President Trump said that some newspapers had reported that seven or eight planes were shot down during the war between Pakistan and India.
He added that one newspaper claimed seven planes were shot down and another damaged.
“I’m not going to name any newspaper here — most of them publish fake news,” Trump said, adding that eight planes were actually shot down in the recent Pakistan-India war.
Last month, the US president had said that “seven brand new and beautiful planes were shot down” during the Pakistan-India war, highlighting the loss of New Delhi in the clashes.
Trump had also boasted about his role in brokering the ceasefire, claiming he single-handedly averted a potential nuclear confrontation.
Speaking at a dinner with business leaders in Japan, Trump had said many of the wars he stopped were due to the tariffs he imposed on several countries, claiming he was doing “a great service to the world”.
“If you look at India and Pakistan, they were doing it,” he had said.
” I said to [Indian] Prime Minister Modi and I said to the Prime Minister [Shehbaz Sharif]very nice man, a very good man and the field marshal [Asim Munir] over in Pakistan … I said, ‘look, we’re not going to trade if you’re going to fight,'” Trump had said.
“We said ‘no, we won’t do any deals if you have to fight’ and within 24 hours that was the end of it. It was actually amazing,” he had added. “I think trade is responsible for 70 percent of the fact that we didn’t have wars.”
During a Diwali celebration at the White House on October 22, Trump said he had told Indian Prime Minister Modi there should be no war with Pakistan, stressing that he had helped avert several conflicts through diplomacy and trade pressure.
The US president had emphasized the result, saying: “And we have no war with Pakistan and India. That was a very, very good thing.” He concluded by praising Modi personally: “He is a great person and he has become a good friend of mine over the years.”
The US president had claimed he had prevented eight wars so far through what he described as “deals and trade”, including one between Pakistan and India.
Trump has previously taken credit on several occasions for helping to ease tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, who have fought three wars since independence and remain at odds over the disputed territory of India’s illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
In May, Pakistan and India engaged in a military standoff, the worst between the old enemies in decades, which was sparked by a terrorist attack on tourists in the IIOJK’s Pahalgam area, which New Delhi said was supported by Pakistan.
Islamabad denied any involvement in the Kashmir attack, which killed 26 men and was the worst attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Following the incident, India killed several innocent civilians in unprovoked attacks on Pakistan for three days before the Pakistani armed forces retaliated in defense with the successful Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos.
Pakistan shot down seven IAF fighter jets, including three Rafales, and dozens of drones. After at least 87 hours, the war between the two nuclear-armed nations ended on May 10 with a cease-fire agreement brokered by the United States.
