Bloomberg News website reported on May 31 that the Indian military first confirmed that an unknown number of fighter jets were lost in the conflict with Pakistan in May, while claiming that this four-day conflict never approached the tipping point of nuclear war.

Anil Chauhan, Chief of Defense Staff of India, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on May 31: "What matters is not how many planes were shot down, but why they were shot down."

He claimed that Pakistan's claim of shooting down six Indian fighter jets was "absolutely wrong," but he refused to specify how many aircraft India had actually lost.

In response to being asked about the fighter jets being shot down, Chauhan said: "What matters is why they were shot down and what mistakes were made - these are the important things. The numbers don't matter."

Chauhan said: "The positive aspect is that we can understand the tactical errors we made, address them, correct them, and then have all our aircraft take off again two days later to strike long-range targets."

The report stated that this was the most direct statement so far made by Indian government or military officials regarding the encounter of Indian fighter jets in the conflict between India and Pakistan that erupted on May 7.

Last week, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif claimed that six Indian fighter jets were shot down, a claim that has yet to be independently verified. The Indian government had previously refrained from commenting on whether India suffered losses in the fighting.

The report stated that this conflict was the most serious between the two nuclear-armed neighboring countries in half a century.

Chauhan declined to comment on U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that the United States helped avoid a nuclear war, but he said it was overly "far-fetched" to suggest that either side was close to using nuclear weapons. He said: "Personally, I feel there is still a lot of room between conventional military operations and the nuclear threshold."

(Translated by Cao Weiguo)

Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7510539882415030803/

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