The killing of a Russian general is one of several that Moscow blames on Ukraine

Ukraine’s Security Service, or SBU, has claimed responsibility for killing Lt. General Igor Kirillov, head of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, in a bombing Tuesday in Moscow.

Kirillov, 54, was killed alongside his assistant, Ilya Polikarpov, when a bomb planted on a scooter exploded outside an apartment block.

An official with the SBU said the agency was behind the attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information, described Kirillov as a “war criminal and an entirely legitimate target.” On Monday, Kirillov was charged in absentia by the SBU for ”ordering the use of banned chemical weapons against Ukraine’s Defense Forces.”

Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out other high-profile attacks throughout the nearly 3-year-old war. Kyiv has hinted at its involvement but Ukrainian officials have stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility.

Other high-profile attacks that Russia has blamed on Ukraine:

TV commentator Darya Dugina, 29, was killed in August 2022 when a remote-controlled bomb planted in her SUV blew up as she drove on Moscow's outskirts.

Her father, Alexander Dugin, was widely believed to be the intended target. The philosopher, writer and political theorist is an ardent supporter of the war and a prominent proponent of the ideology that emphasizes traditional values, the restoration of Russia’s power and the unity of all ethnic Russians.

Ukraine denied responsibility for the attack, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying Dugina is “not our responsibility. She is not a citizen of our country. We are not interested in her.”

Russia’s Federal Security Agency, the FSB, publicly identified two suspects, Ukrainian citizens.

Military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was killed in April 2023 when a bomb tore through a cafe in central St Petersburg where he had been speaking.

Tatarsky, 40, supported the war in Ukraine and filed regular reports from the front for his Telegram followers.

Born in the Donbas region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland, the former coal miner was convicted of bank robbery and escaped after a Russia-backed separatist rebellion engulfed the region in 2014. He joined the rebels and fought on the front line before turning to blogging.

Darya Trepova, 26, was convicted of the bombing and sentenced to 27 years in prison after she was seen on camera presenting a small statue to Tatarsky that exploded shortly afterward. Trepova testified she didn’t know the gift contained a bomb.

Nationalist Russian writer Zakhar Prilepin narrowly avoided death in a car bombing in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region in May 2023. His driver was killed, while Prilepin was hospitalized with broken bones, bruised lungs and other injuries.

Prilepin, known for support of the war, was sanctioned by the European Union.

A Ukrainian, Alexander Permyakov, was found guilty of the attack in a Russian court and sentenced to life imprisonment. Russia’s Investigative Committee accused him of working under orders from Kyiv.

Former submarine commander Stanislav Rzhitsky was gunned down in July 2023 while jogging in Krasnodar, Russia.

Ukrainian media reported that Rzhitsky was one of six submarine commanders able to launch the long-range missiles that hit Vinnytsia, Ukraine, a year earlier, killing 23 people and wounding over 100.

When he died, Rzhitsky was deputy head of a military mobilization office in Krasnodar. Russian media outlets reported that the 42-year-old regularly used a fitness app that could have been used to track his movements,

Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s main intelligence directorate, denied Kyiv's involvement in the death. However, the agency also released details about the killing, including the time of the attack and the number of shots fired. A 64-year-old Ukrainian-born man, Sergei Denisenko, was later arrested.

Illia Kyva, a Ukrainian lawmaker who fled to Russia shortly after the full-scale invasion, was found dead near Moscow in December 2023 with a gunshot wound to the head.

A controversial political figure in Ukraine before the war, Kyva, 46, often appeared on pro-Kremlin TV talk shows and discussions. A month before his death, a Ukrainian court found him guilty in absentia of treason and sentenced him to 14 years in prison.

Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence, said after Kyva’s death that “the same fate will befall other traitors of Ukraine." He did not say who was behind the killing. Russia’s state Investigative Committee opened a probe, but no charges have been made.

Sergei Yevsyukov, the former head of a prison that housed Ukrainian POWs, was killed Dec. 9 after a bomb exploded under a car in the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, Ukrainian media reported. One other person was injured in the blast.

Yevsyukov had run the Olenivka Prison, where dozens of POWs died in a missile strike in July 2022. He later was charged in absentia by Ukrainian authorities with “mass torture."

Russian authorities said Saturday they had detained a suspect in the attack.

Ukrainian media reported Dec. 12 that Russian missile designer Mikhail Shatsky was gunned down in a suburban Moscow park. Shatsky worked at the Moscow Experimental Design Bureau Mars, where he reportedly oversaw the modernization of cruise missiles.

Several Ukrainian media outlets reported that Shatsky had been shot while walking in the Kuzminsky forest, near his home. Russian news media reported on a disturbance in the same area on the day of Shatsky’s reported death, but did not elaborate.

FILE - Russian writer Zakhar Prilepin attends a news conference in Moscow, Russia, on Feb. 21, 2017. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

FILE - Cemetery workers carry a portrait of slain Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky during a funeral at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow, Russia, on April 8, 2023. (Anton Velikzhanin, M24/Moscow News Agency via AP, File)

FILE - A portrait of Daria Dugina is seen as relatives hold her memorial service in Moscow, Russia, on Aug. 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Dmitry Serebryakov, File)

FILE - In this photo taken from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Feb. 28, 2023, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, head of Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces, speaks at a briefing in Moscow, Russia. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

Investigators stand at the site where Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces, and his assistant, Ilya Polikarpov, were killed by an explosive device planted close to a residential apartment's block in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024. (AP Photo)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democratic leaders believe they have a path to winning the majority in November, though it's one with very little wiggle room.

The party got a new burst of confidence when former Rep. Mary Peltola announced Monday she'll run for the Senate in Alaska. Her bid gives Democrats a critical fourth candidate with statewide recognition in states where Republican senators are seeking reelection this year. Nationally, Democrats must net four seats to edge Republicans out of the majority.

That possibility looked all but impossible at the start of last year. And while the outlook has somewhat improved as 2026 begins, Democrats still almost certainly must sweep those four seats. First they must settle some contentious primaries, the mark of a party still struggling with its way forward after Republicans took full control of Washington in 2024. Importantly, they must also beat back challenges to incumbents in some of the most competitive states on the map.

And though some of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's top Democratic Senate recruits were lauded for their statewide success in pivotal states, some are nearly 70 or older, hardly the key to a lasting Democratic transformation.

Republicans doubt the chances Democrats can pull off such a task, considering most of the 2026 contests are in states that Donald Trump easily won in 2024.

Still, independent voters have drifted in Democrats' direction over the past year, according to a new Gallup poll, a slight breeze at Democrats' back they didn't expect a year ago when there was little path at all.

“I say it’s a much wider path than the skeptics think, and a much wider path than it was three months ago and certainly a year ago,” Schumer told The Associated Press Tuesday.

Republicans currently hold 53 seats, while the Democratic caucus has 47 members, including two independents.

Schumer argues that Peltola, elected twice statewide to Alaska's at-large House seat, puts the typically Republican-leaning state in play as a potential pickup for Democrats.

It's a development similar to other states where Schumer believes Democrats have recruited strong candidates: former three-term Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio, former two-term Gov. Roy Cooper in North Carolina and two-term Gov. Janet Mills in Maine.

But they hardly represent a quartet of guarantees. Brown, a longtime pro-labor progressive in increasingly GOP-leaning Ohio, and Peltola, who was elected during a special election in 2022, both lost reelection in 2024. Mills, finishing her second term as governor, faces a competitive primary challenge from progressive veteran and oyster farmer Graham Platner.

None of the four had runaway popularity with voters in their states in 2024. Right around half of voters had somewhat or very favorable views of all of them, with Cooper slightly higher and Brown slightly lower, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of the electorate.

Age remains another issue. After President Joe Biden, in his early 80s, withdrew from the 2024 race amid concerns he was too old to serve, Democratic Senate leadership hasn't changed course. Schumer, 75, has recruited candidates who are older, with several top recruits – including Mills and Brown – well into their 70s.

“Voters sent a very clear message in 2024 that they’re sick of the gerontocracy. They’re sick of Democrats putting up old candidates and that they want some new blood,” said Lis Smith, a national Democratic strategist. “And some of the recruits, like in Maine, seem to completely ignore the message that voters sent in 2024.”

Schumer said winning back the Senate is paramount over all else.

“It's not young versus old. It's not left versus center. It's who can best win in the states,” he said. “So, these are all really good candidates, and I don't think you look at them through one narrow prism. You look at who can win.”

Before Democrats can test their general-election appeal, they must navigate some primaries that highlight lingering divisions within the party.

Platner, who has been endorsed by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, has demonstrated formidable fundraising for his Maine contest, despite controversies surrounding past social media posts and a tattoo linked to Nazi imagery. Some Democrats worry his insurgent appeal could be a liability in November if he is the nominee.

In Michigan, Democratic Sen. Gary Peters' retirement has opened a seat in a state Trump carried narrowly. Republicans have unified behind former Rep. Mike Rogers, while Democrats face a crowded August primary after failing to recruit Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Crowded or contentious primaries are also playing out in Minnesota, Texas and Iowa, forcing Democrats to devote resources even in states not central to their path to a majority.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen is part of an informal group of Democratic senators known as Fight Club that has been openly critical of party leadership’s approach to the midterms. Van Hollen said the group has objected to what it sees as the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm — controlled by Schumer — “wading into certain Democratic primaries.”

“So, yes, we’re taking a look at all of them,” Van Hollen said of endorsing more progressive candidates.

Betsy Ankney, political director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2020, acknowledged Democrats’ desire to make the case for competitiveness but characterized Trump’s presidential victories in Alaska and Ohio in 2024 — by 13 and 11 percentage point margins, respectively — as enormous hurdles.

She said Republicans are “rightly focused, on real tangible targets in Georgia, in Michigan," calling them “very real pickup opportunities.”

Democrats’ shot at the majority almost certainly depends on Sen. Jon Ossoff winning reelection in Georgia, where Trump won in 2024 by 2.2 percentage points, and holding Michigan, where Peters' retirement creates an open seat in a state Trump carried by 1.4 percentage points.

"It’s not just about where the Democrats can play. It’s about where we can play, too,” Ankney said.

Despite the challenges, Democrats see reasons for optimism in the broader political climate.

A new Gallup survey found 47% of U.S. adults now identify with or lean toward the Democrats, while 42% are Republicans or lean Republican. That gives Democrats the advantage in party affiliation for the first time since Trump’s first term.

But the data strongly suggests that independents are moving toward Democrats because of their souring attitude toward Trump, rather than greater goodwill toward Democrats. The Democratic Party’s favorability is still low, and Gallup’s analysis found that, as more Americans identify as independents, they tend to gravitate toward the party that is out of political power — whether it’s the Democrats or the Republicans.

Still, that appears to be a dynamic in Democrats' favor, as economic unease creeps into the election year with little time before the feelings lock into voters' political thinking, veteran Republican pollster Ed Goeas said.

“That creates an environment that will affect these Senate races,” Goeas said, predicting House Republicans could lose their majority. He said Republicans are assuming the economy and the political environment are going to be better.

“I think they are going to end up getting frustrated going into the summer because, first of all, the economy is not on all levels improving. It’s going to be a target-rich environment for Democrats," he said.

“It’s going to be close.”

Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press writer Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks during the Senate Democrat policy luncheon news conference at the Capitol, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

FILE - Rep.-elect Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, is interviewed on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, File)