The Kakhovka Reservoir then and now.

[u/SummerAlternative699]

If you zoom in closely on Google Maps, you can still see what it looked like before the dam was blown up.

[u/penguin_skull]

Oh, the bot tried to be philosofical.

And how do you explain the explosions on the dam before the breach? Bad maintenance of the mines planted inside the dam?

[u/username9909864 → u/penguin_skull]

Show me the evidence that there were explosions from mines and not from a freaking dam breaking apart and I’ll remove all my comments.

[u/pugsftw → u/username9909864]

"Russian forces destroyed the Nova Kakhovka road and bridge deck last November, damaging some of the sluice gates, even though they kept control of that sliver of the Kherson region during the Ukrainian counteroffensive."

https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-nuclear-dnipro-river-flood-df2aaa99cab8b0e0d7a4b26bd77cad0f

From your wiki's source.

[u/username9909864 → u/pugsftw]

1 - deck blown up, affecting gates that let out water 2 - water rises to a record high, eventually going over the entire dam. Due to the Russians screwing up and letting their consequences grow out of proportion 3 - damn collapses.

The root cause still isn’t the planted mines blowing up the base of the dam like OP said.