So what are the odds that Russia actually intentionally did this?
The only correct answer at this time is "nobody knows", I mean, if it was truly intentionally blown up, somebody does know, but that's, well, quite useless for us.
I've seen claims that it might have been a water mine that simply eventually reached the dam. In all honesty, I expect the damn was also mined heavily. And I also expect each side playing with artillery around the area and hoping for the best.
Obviously there's also a chance this was deliberate, but for what exact purpose, we also don't know. Maybe Russia has actual info on a potentially dangerous assault over the river, and calculated that ts only way out was to remove the possibility. TBH seems a bit far fetched, how many Russian soldiers died in this flood? Will Crimea be OK? How many recently dug fortifications swept by the flood? We need answers like these before speculating.
Ukraine also has little reason to sabotage it IMO. Is it worth causing such an ecological disaster in the country you already spent thousands of lives defending? What for? Crimea? Was there some Russian army massing over the east bank of the river? More importantly, Ukraine has risked aggravating Romania, Hungary, Poland etc., NATO countries, just so it can export more cereals. It seems to be a very high priority to keep selling as much cereals as possible for Ukraine. And yet, now they kill 70% of their capacity to do that? That just doesn't really compute.
If somebody truly did this on purpose, they're pretty messed up in the head, that's for sure.
