A Ukrainian security officer has been killed during a special operation to detain an alleged group of saboteurs.
Officials from Ukraine's Security Service said on December 10 that the group consisted of eight people -- five Ukrainian citizens and three Russians.
They said seven of the suspects were arrested during raids in Kyiv and Ukraine's eastern city of Kharkiv on December 9.
The alleged leader of the group, a Ukrainian man, also was killed during the raids.
The SBU said the group is suspected of conducting terrorist attacks in Ukraine.
Several explosions, some of them deadly, have been reported in cities in eastern Ukraine since fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces broke out in April 2014 following Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014.
