LONDON — As Russian helicopter gunships and patrol boats closed on Ukrainian unmanned "sea baby" maritime-attack drones on Dec. 6 to destroy them before they reached their targets, they received an unpleasant surprise: The robot boats were shooting back, seemingly with machine guns being automatically aimed and fired.

According to Ukraine's security service, the SBU, the gunfire from the robot vessels forced the Russian units to break off their attack and is likely to have inflicted Russian casualties, though that could not be confirmed from the grainy video released by the Ukrainian government. It showed a machine gun firing towards helicopters but few further details.

Nor was it immediately clear how much damage the attack had inflicted on what appeared to be its primary targets.

"Russian pilots thought themselves the hunters and expected an easy hunt, but they themselves became the prey as the naval drones opened fire in return," the SBU said in a statement with attached video. It added that they also damaged a barge being used to repair the Kerch Strait bridge to Russian-held Crimea.

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