In the aftermath of a negotiated ceasefire between India and Pakistan over violence across the Kashmiri border in May 2025, a graphic attributed to CNN (archived) purportedly displaying "India-Pakistan Conflict Statistics" received more than 130,000 views on X before the account deleted the claim.
The graphic also spread to Instagram Threads (archived) and YouTube. Although many users in the comments on the original X post tagged X's fact-checking tool, Grok, and asked the account for evidence supporting the claim, others appeared to believe that the graphic and statistics were authentic.
(X user @ammarhanjra)
The claim read:
Pakistan's strike in India, conducted by the PAF [Pakistan Air Force], downed 6 combat jets, including 2 Rafales and an S-400 air defense system. A total of 26 airbases were targeted inside India, including Jammu, Udhampur, Gujrat and Pathankot airbases — most of which were acknowledged by the Indian Army in a press conference.
According to Indian statements, nearly 23 airbases were targeted inside Pakistan. However, none of these claims were officially accepted by Pakistan, and India did not provide any authentic evidence till date.
Aside from the obvious grammatical mistake in writing "till date" (correct wording: "to date"), there is also no evidence CNN published this graphic. We reached out to CNN for comment, and will update this story if we receive a response.
The official X account for CNN International PR responded to the post (archived), writing:
(X user @cnnipr)
Additionally, a Google reverse image search revealed only social media posts related to the claim — nothing officially from CNN — and a Google search of the claim (archived) turned up only the same claim or links related to debunking the claim.
(Google Images)
Lastly, independent sources have not verified the statistics themselves, as of this writing. For example, both India and Pakistan claimed to have shot down fighter jets from the other side, but independent actors have not verified exact numbers.
In sum, an X account fabricated and posted this graphic credited to CNN, which confirmed it was not, in fact, something CNN had reported. Therefore, we rate this claim false.