Bangladesh and India will observe the first day of Ramadan tomorrow (Thursday) following the sighting of the crescent moon, which marks the beginning of the holy month for the year 1447 AH.

The confirmation was made by the Bangladesh National Moon Sighting Committee, which met at the conference room of the Islamic Foundation at Baitul Mukarram National Mosque, according to The Daily Star.

In India, the official announcement was made by its Markazi Royat-E-Hilal Committee regarding the sighting of the Ramadan moon via a circular, stating that the crescent was sighted in New Delhi, the Indian Express reported.

Several Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, began observing Ramadan today after sighting the crescent moon a day earlier, officially marking the start of the holy month.

However, some countries that looked for the Ramadan crescent yesterday reported that it was not visible.

Moon sighting committees in Pakistan and Iran were convened today, as Tuesday marks the 28th of Shaban in the Islamic calendar.

Pakistan will also observe the first day of Ramadan 2026 tomorrow (Thursday) as the crescent moon for the holy month was sighted.

The Muslim world welcomes Ramadan with deep religious devotion, as over a billion believers fast to practise patience, self-discipline, and generosity.

Islamic months last 29 or 30 days, with their start and end determined by the sighting of the crescent moon. As a result, Ramadan does not fall on the same Gregorian date each year.

Being the ninth month of the 12-month Islamic calendar — which is about 10 days shorter than the Gregorian year due to its lunar basis — Ramadan shifts annually across the Gregorian calendar.

• Zelenskiy criticises US pressure for Ukraine concessions.
• Says progress made but positions differ.
• Russia says further talks will be held soon.
  

Peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Geneva ended on Wednesday after only two hours, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy describing them as “difficult” and accusing Russia of deliberately delaying progress toward a deal to end the four-year-old war.

The two days of US-mediated peace talks in Switzerland took place as US President Donald Trump has twice in recent days suggested it was up to Ukraine and Zelenskiy to ensure the talks were successful.

“We can see that progress has been made, but for now, positions differ because the negotiations were difficult,” Zelenskiy told reporters in a WhatsApp chat shortly after talks concluded.

Rustem Umerov, the head of Kyiv’s negotiating team, said separately that the second day had been “intensive and substantive”. Both sides were working toward decisions that can be sent to their presidents, he said.

Russia’s chief negotiator, former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, told reporters that further negotiations would be held soon, without specifying a date. Earlier on Wednesday, Zelenskiy had accused Russia of “trying to drag out negotiations that could already have reached the final stage”.

Ukrainian officials have routinely accused Moscow – which has carried out a winter bombing campaign against Ukraine’s energy system and pursued its battlefield offensive – of negotiating in bad faith.

Pressure from Trump

In an interview with US website Axios published on Tuesday, Zelenskiy was quoted as saying that it was “not fair” Trump kept publicly calling on Ukraine, not Russia, to make concessions in negotiating terms for a peace plan.

Trump had told reporters on Monday that “Ukraine better come to the table fast. That’s all I’m telling you.”

Zelenskiy also said any plan requiring Ukraine to give up territory that Russia had not captured in the eastern Donbas region would be rejected by Ukrainians if put to a referendum.

“I hope it is just his tactics and not the decision,” Axios quoted Zelenskiy as saying in the interview.

Push for European involvement

The talks came just days before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s 2022 invasion of its much smaller neighbour. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, millions have fled their homes, and many Ukrainian cities, towns and villages have been devastated by the conflict.

Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians.

Umerov said on Tuesday that the first day of talks had focused on “practical issues and the mechanics of possible decisions,” without providing details. However, Russian news agencies quoted a source as saying that the Tuesday talks were “very tense” and lasted six hours in different bilateral and trilateral formats.

Ukrainian government bonds fell as much as 1.9 cents on the dollar in morning trade in Europe on reports of stalled progress at the talks.

Before the talks began, Umerov had played down hopes for a significant step forward in Geneva, saying the Ukrainian delegation was working “without excessive expectations”.

The Geneva meeting follows two rounds of US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi that concluded without a major breakthrough as the two sides remained far apart on key issues such as the control of territory in eastern Ukraine.

Russia occupies about 20% of Ukraine’s national territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region, which it seized before the 2022 full-scale invasion. Its recent airstrikes on energy infrastructure have left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians without heating and power during a harsh winter.

MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Wednesday that neither China nor Russia havecarried out secret nuclear tests, noting Beijing had denied US accusations that it had done so.

The United States this month accused China of conducting a secret nuclear test in 2020 as it called for a new, broader arms control treaty that would bring in China as well as Russia.

“We’ve heard many references to certain tests. Both the Russian Federation and China have been mentioned in this regard. Neither the Russian Federation nor China has conducted any nuclear tests,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“We also know that these allegations were categorically denied by a representative of the People’s Republic of China, so that’s the situation,” added Peskov.

US President Donald Trump is pressing China to join the US and Russia to negotiate a replacement pact to New START, the last US-Russian nuclear arms control agreement, which expired on February 5.

The treaty’s expiration has fuelled concerns among some experts that the world is on the verge of an accelerated nuclear arms race, though other arms control experts say such fears are exaggerated.