Indian Air Force Director General AK Bharti said that Indian forces have intercepted and disabled a series of high-tech foreign weapons used by Pakistan, including the long-range PL-15 surface-to-air missile originating from China and Turkey's Byker YIHA III Kamikaze drone.
You can see their debris on screen, Bharti said at a press conference, pointing to the PL-15 missile debris taken from a field in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, northern India, bordering Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Pakistan claimed to have shot down five Indian fighter jets, including three French-made Rafale.
A French intelligence source told CNN that a Rafale plane was actually shot down in the fighting.
New Delhi did not directly say whether the plane was missing or not, but only determined that all pilots were safe.
The PL-15, developed by the China Aviation Industry Group, is designed to attack high-value air targets at a range of more than 200km.
The PL-15 missile has never been used in combat. The missile is equipped with a twin-turbo engine, helping it achieve a super-alarm speed exceeding Mach 5.
Because it is extremely fast, it basically has a so-called inexorable zone, said Fabian Hoffmann, a missile technology researcher and a member of the European Policy Analysis Center.
India's confirmation of the rocket's origin was made just days after the Pakistan military released a video on YouTube showing the country's military arsenal, including the Chinese-made JF-17 Block 3 fighter jet equipped with PL-15 missiles.
Analysts believe that the missile may have been used to shoot down a Rafale fighter jet deep inside Indian territory.
According to the Telegraph, the body of a Rafale plane was found near Bathinda in Punjab, northern India.
The Indian Air Force operates a squadron of 36 Rafale F3R aircraft, the most advanced model.
The clear participation of Chinese aircraft in the Rafale take-off shocked the national defense and caused Chengdu Aircraft Corporation's stock price to skyrocket by 20%.
So far, China's weapons have not been tested in practice with Western-made systems such as the Rafale.
Former editor of Hu Jixin Times Global, said that the above developments in the war between India and Pakistan show that "China's military production level has completely surpassed Russia and France".
