Police in Spain say a recently discovered body is believed to be a Russian soldier who previously defected to Ukraine.

Spanish authorities are identifying the victim, who was found on Feb. 15 with multiple gunshot wounds in the town of La Cala, as Russian defector Maksim Kuzminov.

Last year, Kuzminov abandoned his post and flew an army helicopter over the front lines into Ukrainian territory. The Mi-8 AMTSh helicopter had been loaded with parts for Sukhoi fighter jets.

Ukrainian military spokesperson Andrii Yusov confirmed Kuzminov’s death to local news outlets.

Russian Foreign Intelligence Service chief Sergei Naryshkin also confirmed the reports, calling Kuzminov as a ‘traitor and criminal.’

Naryshkin told state news agency Tass that Kuzminov became a ‘moral corpse’ after planning his ‘dirty and terrible crime.’

Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Alexei Danilov reportedly told Kuzminov to stay in Ukraine following his defection, citing the risk of attack by Russian agencies if he left the country.

Spanish Civil Guard officers found the corpse with six gunshots and run over by a vehicle. 

Kuzminov’s body was also planted with documents that identified him as an unrelated 33-year-old Ukrainian citizen, authorities say.

After the investigation commenced, police became confident that the documents were false and began suspecting the victim was actually Kuzminov.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said he had no details on the incident and had not received information from diplomatic channels.

The Biden campaign raised more than $42 million in January and has $130 million in cash-on-hand–a figure President Biden’s re-election team is touting as ‘the highest total amassed by any Democratic candidate in history’ at this point in the election cycle, Fox News Digital has learned.

The campaign has raised nearly $278 million since the president announced his run for a second term in April 2023.

‘January’s fundraising haul – driven by a powerhouse grassroots fundraising program that continues to grow month by month – is an indisputable show of strength to start the election year,’ said Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign manager, said in a statement.  ‘While Team Biden-Harris continues to build on its fundraising machine, Republicans are divided – either spending money fighting Donald Trump, or spending money in support of Donald Trump’s extreme and losing agenda.’

She added: ‘Either way, judging from their weak fundraising, they’re already paying the political price.’

Chavez Rodriguez said that the 2024 election ‘will determine the fate of our democracy and our freedoms,’ and stressed that the Biden campaign ‘is using its resources to build a winning operation that will meet voters where they are about the stakes of this election.’

Meanwhile, campaign senior communications advisor TJ Ducklo said the team is ‘particularly proud that January shattered our grassroots fundraising record for a third straight month.’

‘This haul will go directly to reaching the voters who will decide this election,’ Ducklo said. ‘That’s reason number 355 million that we are confident President Biden and Vice President Harris will win this November.’

The Biden campaign, in January, had its strongest grassroots fundraising month, breaking its previous record from December. The campaign said last month that 1.1 million supporters have made nearly 3 million contributions.

The campaign also touted ‘high-profile moments’ that motivated grassroots donors, saying that they raised $1 million each day in the three days following the GOP Iowa Caucuses.

‘January’s unprecedented fundraising numbers underscore the grassroots momentum to send Joe Biden and Kamala Harris back to the White House, and elect Democrats up and down the ballot this November,’ Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement. ‘From coast to coast, Americans are rallying together to safeguard our democracy and defend our freedoms in a historic way.’

He added: ‘As this election year kicks into full gear, Team Biden-Harris and the DNC stand united, leveraging the power of grassroots donors to propel Democrats to victory at every level.’

An early look at the Fox News 2024 Presidential Power Rankings predicts Georgia and Arizona to be among the closest contests. Those states were once thought to be Republican strongholds. Nevada, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have all shifted between red and blue over the years, making it difficult to determine which nominee voters there will pick in 2024.

‘These were the closest last time around,’ said Jessica Taylor, the Senate and governors editor for the Cook Political Report. Florida is ‘what 2000 came down to.’

Twenty-four years and six elections ago, Florida was a presidential battleground state, along with current solid Republican states like Missouri, Tennessee and West Virginia, and now-solid Democrat states like Washington, Oregon and New Mexico.

‘Both [Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore] used these different campaign tactics and campaign memorabilia to kind of speak to certain voters,’ Museum of Democracy Chair Austin Wright said.

The Museum of Democracy in New York holds more than 1.25 million objects in its collection. Wright said in the 2000 election in Florida, Gore used a Gore-Lieberman yarmulke to cater to Florida’s large Jewish population. Bush campaigned by trying to sway more rural Florida voters with his Texas roots. 

‘Some of these pictures of Bush in his Texas campaign gear … we think that contributed to the more rural Panhandle,’ Wright said.

Bush won Florida by a narrow margin in 2000, prompting a recount. Without the state of Florida decided, Gore had 266 electoral votes and Bush had 246. The recount, certification process and legal battle lasted more than a month. The results eventually showed Bush won Florida with a tight 537-vote advantage over Gore.

‘I am thankful for America and thankful that we were able to resolve our electoral differences in a peaceful way,’ Bush said after the results were finalized.

Since 2000, Florida’s population has changed. The Cuban and Venezuelan populations are growing. In many cases, they fled their countries because of socialism and now tend to lean Republican.

‘I think there’s a misconception out there and just popular culture that there’s this monolithic Hispanic community,’ said Gerhard Peters, co-director of the American Presidency Project at UC Santa Barbara. ‘Cuban Americans in South Florida have historically been very reliable Republican voters.’

There has also been an increase in retirees in Florida. Former President Trump won among voters 65 and older in the state by 11 points in 2020.

‘To me, does Biden even play there?’ Taylor said. ‘It’s just very hard to imagine that being very competitive when you look at just the trends.’

Florida voters last favored the Democrat nominee in 2012, when President Barack Obama ran for reelection against former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.  

‘I still consider Florida to be a battleground state,’ Peters said. ‘I think it’s a very fluid state in a lot of ways. We’ve seen a lot of migration to Florida from other states.’

Colorado is another state that has experienced population changes over the years. In 2000 and 2004, Bush won the state. During the Obama years, it was a swing state. Now, Colorado is in the solid-blue category.

‘Colorado is a great example of how the demographics changed,’ Wright said. ‘I think Obama’s ‘hope and change’ sentiment really contributed to that. I think that artwork really made an imprint on giving young people this hope that the country could be a better, different place.’

Denver grew by 20% between 2010 and 2020, with mostly minorities moving to the city. A lot of voters in the suburbs are wealthier and college-educated. Suburban voters have tended to lean Democrat since Trump became the standard-bearer of the GOP. 

‘A lot of suburban voters would have voted Republican in the past because they were thinking about their pocketbook issues,’ Peters said. ‘A lot of those voters, especially educated women voters, have moved away from the Republican Party.’

Suburban voters are also impacting presidential preference in other states.

‘Colorado to me is what possibly maybe Arizona could be in a couple of years if we see sort of the same trends,’ Taylor said. ‘I think Arizona right now is firmly in the toss-up column because you do still have a significant number of Republicans there.’

Arizona holds the nation’s largest county and largest suburb. The Hispanic vote has also been growing, with the majority leaning Democrat.

‘These campaigns have directed not only a number of ads that speak solely in Spanish, but we’ve seen a number of buttons and a number of posters that really touch on these different groups,’ Wright said.

Another western state is also in the battleground state column.

‘We’re doing a heck of a lot in the state of Nevada,’ President Biden said during a recent campaign stop in the swing state.

Nevada trended red in the 1980s. Since 2008, the majority of voters there have picked the Democrat nominee. Similar to Arizona, the state has seen an increase in Hispanic voters.

Minorities are also helping Democrats in Georgia. Republican presidential candidates won the state from 1996 until 2020. Atlanta’s thriving job market has brought in younger, more diverse voters and is now home to nearly half of the state’s population.

‘The digital side of it has really changed the way people campaign. And so I think that in places like Georgia … targeting young people in particular has kind of changed that whole dynamic,’ Wright said.

‘We weren’t even thinking about Arizona and Georgia a couple of presidential cycles ago. But when you look at the migration into the states – more diverse, more college-educated, that has put those on the map. Whereas Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, you have so many White working-class voters,’ Taylor said. ‘A place like Wisconsin that was more reliably Democratic, it’s now come on the map.’ 

The White working-class vote swung right as Trump gained traction in the Republican Party.

‘Pennsylvania is one of the most important battleground states in the nation,’ Trump said at a National Rifle Association event in Harrisburg.

Some political scientists say Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election because she fell short in the Rust Belt states.

‘I think the key for the Democrats and for Joe Biden is No. 1 to show up, to campaign in those states, to not take them for granted,’ Peters said.

Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are still competitive because of the large number of suburban and minority voters.

‘Right now, every one of those general election polls show you … in Wisconsin, Trump doesn’t beat Biden. I win Wisconsin by 15 points,’ Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley told reporters after a rally in Elgin, South Carolina. ‘Why would I do anything other than continue to fight and let the American people who don’t want this to be Trump and Biden, let them have a voice and be heard?’

While changing demographics have had an impact on many swing states, political preferences are also changing across the country.

‘The coalitions of people that make up the political parties change. And I think we’re in the midst of that right now. Political scientists will debate what is the Republican Party? Or, what is the Democratic Party? Who are the people that make up those coalitions? And I think we’re seeing that change right before our eyes,’ Peters said.

The battleground states could change again in coming years. Minnesota is trending in the direction of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, with the shift being driven by farmers and agricultural workers who tend to not like Democrat messaging on environmental issues and gun policy.

Texas could go the other direction. Republicans have been winning by narrower margins in recent elections. Hispanic and young voters aren’t the only group moving to the state. Liberal voters from other states like California are also migrating in increasing numbers.

North Carolina could become a swing state once again after trending red in recent years. Many wealthy, urban voters moved to the state during the 2020 pandemic, whereas dozens of deep-red rural counties saw populations decline.

President Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden, paid off thousands in taxes owed since 2015, Pennsylvania Department of Revenue filings show. 

As of Jan. 3 at 12:30 a.m., the Department of Revenue updated Ashley’s docket to ‘satisfaction filed,’ indicating the previous lien notification ‘should be removed from the court records’ in Philadelphia County.

On Dec. 18, Fox News Digital first reported Ashley’s tax delinquency after the issuance of a tax lien at the start of the month, indicating unpaid taxes totaling $4,985 plus a filing fee of $94.44, totaling $5,079.

A tax lien is a legal claim imposed by the government on a property or assets to secure unpaid taxes after repeated attempts to collect.

On Dec. 1, the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue in Philadelphia County notified Ashley Biden that the ‘amount of such unpaid tax, interest, additions or penalties is a lien in favor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania upon the taxpayer’s property – real, personal, or both – as the case may be,’ according to the notice.

The period start date listed on the lien begins Jan. 1, 2015 – when Joe Biden was vice president in the Obama administration – and ends Jan. 1, 2021, days before he was sworn in as president.

Ashley Biden’s attorney and the White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s multiple requests for comment.

Ashley worked as a social worker in the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families from 2007 to 2012. She received her master’s degree in social work from University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice in 2010.

In 2017, while working at the Delaware Center for Justice – a nonprofit criminal justice reform organization – she launched a charitable fashion brand, Livelihood. In 2019, she left her job at the Delaware Center for Justice to help her father’s presidential campaign.

Garrett Ziegler, one of the board members of the nonprofit Marco Polo and former President Trump aide, told Fox News Digital in a statement Monday that ‘Marco Polo is pleased that Ashley has come into compliance with the law.’

Ziegler, who Hunter Biden is suing for leaking the contents of his infamous laptop, first notified Fox News Digital about the tax filings.

‘However, to be clear, as a social worker who has had to deal with adversity and trauma from her past … and as the wife of a prominent surgeon, Ashley should have never had to deal with this — the people in her life should have done a better job of helping with her financial affairs,’ he said.

Ashley’s brother, Hunter Biden, meanwhile, allegedly carried out a multiyear scheme to bypass paying $1.4 million in federal taxes while living an indulgent lifestyle that included spending significant sums on escorts and illegal drugs, according to his California indictment on nine tax-related charges.

Special Counsel David Weiss said he ‘engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019, from in or about January 2017 through in or about October 15, 2020, and to evade the assessment of taxes for tax year 2018 when he filed false returns in or about February 2020,’ which was in the middle of his father’s presidential campaign.

Weiss added that in ‘furtherance of that scheme,’ Hunter Biden ‘subverted the payroll and tax withholding process of his own company, Owasco, PC by withdrawing millions’ from the company ‘outside of the payroll and tax withholding process that it was designed to perform.’

Hunter Biden had allegedly ‘spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills,’ and in 2018, ‘stopped paying his outstanding and overdue taxes for tax year 2015.’

Fox News’ Joe Schoffstall contributed to this report.

The State Department’s inspector general has opened an inquiry into the suspension of President Biden’s special envoy to Iran, Robert Malley, according to a report. 

The inspector general’s office informed members of Congress on Jan. 23 about the internal investigation, Semafor reported Saturday, citing correspondence viewed by the outlet. 

‘The scope of the special review of the suspension of Robert Malley’s clearance will include the procedures the Department used in suspending the clearance as well as actions taken by the Department following the suspension,’ Ryan Holden, the inspector general’s director of congressional and public affairs, reportedly said in the letter. ‘This will include whether the Department followed proper procedures in suspending his clearance, determining what access to information he could maintain, and deciding the status of his employment.’

Holden informed lawmakers that the inspector general was interviewing State Department staff and reviewing documents and emails as part of the probe, and that a report would be made public at a later date.

‘The special review will also examine which officials were involved in these decisions and how the process compares to that used for other types of employees,’ the letter added. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department on Monday about the report but did not immediately hear back. 

The probe comes in response to growing questions from members of Congress about the Diplomatic Security Service’s decision to revoke his security clearance last April. 

Lawmakers reportedly have expressed concern over how Malley continued to perform some of the duties of the special envoy for nearly three months before the State Department officially placed him on unpaid leave in late June amid an investigation into his security clearance. Members of Congress hoped the new inspector general inquiry could explain why. 

GOP staffers who spoke to Semafor expressed doubt that details about the inspector general’s probe would be made public before November’s election, given the inquiry’s wide scope. 

Malley, who served in the position since January 2021, is also under investigation by the FBI for allegedly mishandling classified documents. He played a significant role in the Biden administration’s efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement. In 2018, then-President Trump opted to withdraw from the deal and reimpose sanctions on Iran.

Before becoming special envoy, Malley worked in leadership roles at the non-profit International Crisis Group, which had reached a formal research agreement with Iran’s Foreign Ministry in 2016, Semafor reported earlier this month. The outlet said the deal had not been publicly disclosed. 

In the wake of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas in southern Israel, Malley’s previous efforts to push for U.S. engagement with Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah terror groups have come under scrutiny. Yet, Malley, who remains on leave from the State Department, is teaching a class at Yale University this semester titled, ‘Contending with Israel-Palestine,’ which aims to take ‘an in-depth look at important questions surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,’ according to Yale News. 

The Biden administration has been mostly quiet about Malley since his suspension over the summer, and a new special envoy has been tapped to take over. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a high school classmate of Malley’s in Paris, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan both initially championed Malley’s diplomatic work.