It’s a familiar story: in the cutthroat world of global arms deals, facts can get messy. This became crystal clear when Dassault’s CEO, Éric Trappier, stood up to defend his company’s star product. He delivered his line—that claims of downed Indian Rafales were “inaccurate”—with the smooth assurance of someone whose job depends on it. You could tell he wasn’t just defending a machine; he was defending a massive price tag. With the prestigious Paris Air Show looming, his words were less a statement of fact and more a calculated act of corporate preservation.

One must question the timing. For over a month, a narrative of Indian losses had been solidifying, fed by a stream of videos from local populations in Bathinda, Akhnoor, and Pompore showing what appeared to be crash sites. For weeks, the story was getting messier. Even India’s own news channels, outlets like NDTV and India Today, were admitting that jets had crashed. On the other side, Pakistan wasn’t being vague—they were pointing fingers, claiming their J-10C fighters did the job with PL-15 missiles. To top it off, word got out that an Indian minister had confessed to losing five jets in just four days. And through all that........

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