Fact Check: Army Chief admits India lost six jets, 250 soldiers in Operation Sindoor? No, video is AI-manipulated

Hyderabad: A video of Chief of the Army Staff General Upendra Dwivedi allegedly saying that six jets and 250 soldiers on the Indian side were lost during Operation Sindoor is going viral on social media.

In the video, we can hear him saying, “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… We have already lost six jets and 250 soldiers, but we will never give up. We have some deductions. So what are the deductions? That, as far as, whole of the nation approach will be there for the next war…”

Sharing the video on Facebook, a user wrote, “Breaking: Indian Army Chief admits losing 6 jets and 250 soldiers in war against #Pakistan.” (Archive)

Posts making similar claims can be seen here, here and here. (Archive 1, Archive 2 and Archive 3)

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The clip of the Chief of the Army Staff saying India lost six jets and 250 soldiers is AI-manipulated.

Firstly, we did not find any news reports or credible social media posts showing the Chief of the Army Staff admitting that India lost six jets and 250 soldiers during the conflict with Pakistan.

This hinted that the video and audio could have been manipulated.

A reverse image search of the keyframes led us to a video uploaded to YouTube on August 10. The video was uploaded by Republic World with the title, ‘Full Speech: Indian Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi Reveals Pak’s fake Narrative | Op Sindoor’

The video has the full speech of the Indian Chief of the Army Staff, General Upendra Dwivedi, at IIT Madras. The speech was delivered on August 9. The podium in both videos is the same with the IITM insignia.

According to the description of the video, “The speech detailed the strategic execution of Operation Sindoor, launched on May 7, 2025, in response to the April 22, 2025, Pahalgam terror attack that claimed 26 lives.”

In the video, at the 10:48-minute mark, General Dwivedi is heard saying “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, in that we have to fight this battle together. Now, non-kinetic has to be fought together.”

Until here, the general’s statement is similar to the viral video.

However, the statement ‘we have already lost six jets and 250 soldiers, but we will never give up. We will learn. We have some deductions.’ doesn’t appear in the original video. It can only be heard in the viral video; eight seconds of the clip, to be precise.

After that statement, both videos continue the same with the general continuing the speech, saying ‘so, what are the deductions…’

This confirmed that eight seconds of deepfake content was inserted into the original video.

Eight seconds of false information inserted

We analysed the 40-second-long viral video and found that General Dwivedi sounds different from the rest of the viral video between the 00:18 and 00:25 minute marks, where he makes the statement about India’s alleged losses.

In those eight seconds, the audio also does not match the general’s facial expressions and lip movements.

We scanned the entire YouTube video, and at no point did General Dwivedi speak about India losing six jets and 250 Indian soldiers.

The Print also uploaded a video of General Upendra Dwivedi’s entire speech delivered on August 9 at IIT Madras. Even this video does not show the Army General making the viral remarks, saying India lost six jets and 250 soldiers in the recent conflict with Pakistan.

Analysis of the video using deepfake tools

We analysed the 8-second clip using Deepware.ai, which detected deepfake content. Three out of four determinants stated that the video clip is 76 to 81 per cent likely to have been a deepfake.

The video clip showing the Chief of the Army Staff saying India lost six jets and 250 soldiers is AI-manipulated.

Therefore, NewsMeter concludes that the viral claim is false.