The Indian Air Force acknowledged Sunday that it suffered combat losses against Pakistan during last week's clashes.
Responding to a question, it said that "losses are a part of combat" without giving details, but added that all its pilots were back home.
Earlier Wednesday, a Pakistani military spokesperson had told Reuters that five Indian aircraft had been shot down, but India did not confirm the claim.
Also on Wednesday, four government sources in Indian-ruled Kashmir told Reuters that three fighter jets crashed in the federal territory, hours after India said it struck nine Pakistani "terrorist infrastructure" sites across the border.
The loss was also reported by two U.S. officials, who said that the Chinese-made Pakistani J-10 fighter plane shot down at least two French-made Indian military aircraft, including a Rafale, on Wednesday.
It marked a major milestone for Beijing's advanced fighter jets and their performance against a Western rival is being closely watched in Washington for insights into how Beijing might fare in any showdown over Taiwan or the wider Indo-Pacific.
One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters there was high confidence that Pakistan had used the Chinese-made J-10 aircraft to launch air-to-air missiles against Indian fighter jets.
Social media posts focused on the performance of China's PL-15 air-to-air missile against the Meteor, a radar-guided air-to-air missile produced by the European group MBDA. There has been no official confirmation that these weapons were used.
"Air warfare communities in China, the U.S. and several European countries will be extremely interested to try and get as much ground truth as they can on tactics, techniques, procedures, what kit was used, what worked and what didn't," said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
"You have arguably China's most capable weapon against the West's most capable weapon, if indeed it was being carried; we don't know that," Barrie said.
Barrie said the French and Americans would likely be hoping for similar intelligence from India.
"The PL-15 is a big problem. It is something that the U.S. military pays a lot of attention to," a defense industry executive said.
Rafale manufacturer Dassault Aviation declined to comment and the MBDA consortium could not immediately be reached for comment on a French public holiday.
