Video Of IAF Chief Admitting To Loss Of S-400 Air Defence System Is Altered

A video purportedly showing Indian Air Force (IAF) Chief AP Singh admitting to the loss of the S-400 air defence system and blaming air force officers for it is being circulated online as real.

BOOM found the video is altered using generative AI (artificial intelligence). In the original video, Singh said the defence systems had already been moved before becoming a target of the Pakistan forces and described the S-400 as a game changer.

The 47-second footage shows Singh blaming some IAF operators for failing to move the S-400 air defence systems on time, which supposedly led to the loss of two units.

The Claim

A verified handle on X shared the video with the caption, "Indian Airforce Chief blames India Air defense officers for the loss of S-400 systems. He says that operators of the system couldn't use the mobility of the weapons timely to evade Pakistan Airforce strikes on the Air defense systems. He assures India that not to worry as they have ordered 2 more systems from Russia."

Click here to view the post and here for an archive.

What We Found: Viral Video Is A Deepfake

1. Original Video: The viral clip carried the logo of the news outlet Economic Times. We then broke the video into keyframes and ran a reverse search on them using Google Lens. This led to the original footage of the IAF Chief praising the efficiency of the S-400 air defence system, which was uploaded on the Economic Times’ official YouTube channel on September 19, 2025. In the original version, Singh can be seen stating that the systems were already moved before being targeted by the enemy, and there is no mention of blaming air force officers for the loss of two S-400s or of procuring additional equipment from Russia.

2. AI Detector Tool Flags Manipulation: For further verification, we tested the video on the DeepFake-o-meter developed by the UB Media Forensics Lab at the University at Buffalo, New York. The tool flagged signs of manipulation using different detection models.