Bengaluru

IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal AP Singh has said that the S-400 missile system proved to be a "game changer" after Pakistan's escalation during Operation Sindoor, and the range of the system kept their aircraft away.

The Chief of the Air Staff, who delivered the keynote address at the 16th edition of the Air Chief Marshal LM Katre Memorial Lecture, held on Saturday at the HAL Management Academy Auditorium, Bengaluru, said India's air defence systems did a wonderful job during Operation Sindoor.

"The S-400 system, which we had recently bought, has been a game-changer. The range of that system has really kept their (Pakistani) aircraft away from their weapons like, those long-range glide bombs that they have, they have not been able to use any one of those because they have not been able to penetrate the system," Singh said.

India has procured the S-400 system from Russia.

India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 as a decisive military response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people were killed. Indian Armed Forces targeted terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, leading to the death of over 100 terrorists.

India repelled subsequent Pakistani aggression and pounded its airbases.

The IAF chief showed pictures of the damage done to various terror bases in Bahawalpur, Sialkot, Muridke, and other places.

"These are the before and after images of the damage we caused (at Bahawalpur - JeM HQ)... There's hardly any collateral here... The adjacent buildings are fairly intact... Not only did we have satellite pictures, but also from local media, through which we could get inside pictures," he added, showing the before and after pictures of the JeM headquarters in Bahawalpur.

Singh also said that the Indian Armed Forces had destroyed at least five Pakistani fighter aircraft and one large aircraft during Operation Sindoor.

"We have at least five fighters confirmed kills and one large aircraft, which could be either an ELINT aircraft or an AEW &C aircraft, which was taken on at a distance of about 300 kilometres. This is actually the largest ever recorded surface-to-air kill that we can talk about," he said.

"We were able to get at least two command and control centres...At least six radars, some of them big, some of them small. Two SAGW systems that is in Lahore and Okara. We attacked three hangars. One was the Sukkur UAV hangar, the Bholari hangar and the Jacobabad F-16 hangar. We have an indication of at least one AEW&C in that AEW&C hangar and a few F-16s, which were under maintenance there," he added.

India is also awaiting the delivery of two more squadrons of the five S-400 squadrons that it had ordered in a 2018 deal. The first three squadrons have already been received and operationally deployed. Just before the delivery of the fourth squadron, war broke out between Russia and Ukraine.

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India is also considering the option of buying two more squadrons of S-400 long-range surface-to-air missile systems from Russia, according to defence sources.