A video of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar speaking on a stage is being widely shared on X (formerly Twitter), where he purportedly admits to India losing French-made Rafale fighter jets to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor.
(Archived versions of more posts sharing this claim can be seen here, here, and here.)
Is it true?: No, the claim is false as the video is a digitally altered one.
There is no evidence of Jaishankar making any statement of this nature and the Ministry of External Affairs has clarified that the claim is false.
How do we know?: A reverse image search led us to the official YouTube channel of the Ministry of External Affairs, which had shared a video of EAM S Jaishankar's conversation with Newsweek journalist Dev Pragad.
The video was also shared on Newsweek's verified YouTube channel.
Throughout the conversation, there was no mention of Pakistan taking down India's Rafale jets, much less six of them.
At the 42:15-minute mark into the video, we heard Jaishankar make similar statements as heard in the viral clip.
He spoke about India's dealing with Pakistan being bilateral, stating that he "was in the room when [US] Vice President Vance spoke to Prime Minister Modi on the night of 9th May," when the former told PM Modi about Pakistan launching a "massive assault on India if we did not accept certain things," but PM Modi was "impervious" to Pakistan's threats.
"On the contrary, he indicated that there would be a response from us. This was the night before and something, you know, the Pakistanis did attack us massively that night. We responded very quickly thereafter and the next morning Mr Rubio called me up and said the Pakistanis were ready to talk."EAM S Jaishankar in conversation with Newsweek
This part of his statement was found to be digitally altered, as he did not mention Rafales being downed by Pakistan. That sentence in the viral was edited into the clip.
The Ministry of External Affairs, too, clarified that the claim was false and that the video was an altered one in an X post.
Conclusion: An edited video is being widely shared with the false claim that EAM S Jaishankar admitted that Pakistan downed six Rafale jets during Operation Sindoor.
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