Maintenance and/or somebody hitting the 'wrong' button. Never discount sheer incompetence either. I would bet there was a 'button' in the control room for the mines and it wasn't red guarded... just sayin...
What I find most difficult about “motive” is the extent to which this is a mind-boggling self-own for either side. Endangering drinking water for Crimea and cooling for Zapporhizia NPP (whose power output Russia wants for itself) is not exactly a great move for Russia. And Ukraine, for all the reasons you state above, has every incentive to keep its own critical infrastructure in as few pieces as possible.
The hypothesis that the Russians mined the dam on purpose to cover a hypothetical retreat, but that they did not intend to detonate the explosives *when they did* seems like the most plausible combination. Or that the Russians put somebody in control of those bombs who didn’t know Jack about dams, drinking water, or nuclear power stations. Which, given their army, also seems plausible.
Ukraine's Kakhovka Dam Explosion (UPDATE)
Maintenance and/or somebody hitting the 'wrong' button. Never discount sheer incompetence either. I would bet there was a 'button' in the control room for the mines and it wasn't red guarded... just sayin...
Saw something similar a long time ago in a 'different' place...
What I find most difficult about “motive” is the extent to which this is a mind-boggling self-own for either side. Endangering drinking water for Crimea and cooling for Zapporhizia NPP (whose power output Russia wants for itself) is not exactly a great move for Russia. And Ukraine, for all the reasons you state above, has every incentive to keep its own critical infrastructure in as few pieces as possible.
The hypothesis that the Russians mined the dam on purpose to cover a hypothetical retreat, but that they did not intend to detonate the explosives *when they did* seems like the most plausible combination. Or that the Russians put somebody in control of those bombs who didn’t know Jack about dams, drinking water, or nuclear power stations. Which, given their army, also seems plausible.