There's another theory that they only meant to blow a few small holes in it to flood the small islands that Ukraine had a foothold in but through typical Russian incompetence accidentally blew the entire dam. It would be typical Russian stupidity but we already know they mined the dam last year, plus they purposely restricted water flow through the dam to put it at its highest capacity shortly before the explosion so I lean towards it being intentional to blow the entire thing.

Honestly it's not really hard to believe (Imo) that they would blow the entire thing on purpose, Russia has shown zero care for the citizens or its own soldiers throughout this entire conflict, the water supply issue affects Crimeans but Russia only cares about Crimea for the Sevastopol port and fixing the water supply issue may not even be Russia's issue if Ukraine takes back Crimea. That's a future issue to deal with for Russia and now Ukraine's issue if they ever retake Crimea.

I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't expect it to be this bad because a lot of Russian soldiers were caught in it and a lot of Russian held territory is now flooded but again, Russia hasn't cared about their troops throughout this whole thing either, Lol. But Russia often does shit and doesn't think about the consequences one bit. Feels like a panic move in response to the fear of a Ukrainian counteroffensive upcoming, they want to distract Ukraine and shorten the defensive lines, there was also speculation of Ukraine attempting an amphibious assault across the river but that was always unlikely.

Can't rule out a structural failure but that'd still be Russia's fault.

An unfortunate loss, Ukraine needs way more AD so that losses like this won't be felt as bad.

Russians panicking everyday lately so I'm not sure.

Everything Russians do these days is a war crime. Russian troops should be riddled with bullets, as should any reinforcements from Russia's allies. If you fight for Russia, then you're not human, you're a cockroach that should be stomped into the ground.

My theory before reading your post was that some drunk solider had too much of that crappy Russian vodka and lit up a smoke and accidently threw away the lit butt in a stock pile of ammo and it caused a change reaction causing things to explode lol. 

Damn, they only got one from Germany (7 more when they are ready). I think Ukraine also got a few more directly from the manufacturer but they won't have more than maybe 5 overall.