Ukraine on Sunday appeared to start a long-expected counteroffensive in opposition to Russian forces, and its officers mentioned that Moscow blew the dam to hinder their advance by inflicting flooding and eradicating the one remaining river crossing between the enemies. It just isn’t clear, although, whether or not Ukraine’s plans name for a serious crossing of the decrease Dnipro.

Ukrainians questioned why they’d wish to destroy their very own infrastructure, cities and farms, whereas noting that these have been frequent targets within the brutal Russian conduct of the warfare. Moscow needed to “show they are ready to do anything” if Kyiv aggressively pursues its counteroffensive, mentioned Roman Kostenko, chairman of the protection and intelligence committee in Ukraine’s Parliament. “They do everything to stop our counterattack.”

Mr. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, claimed that Ukraine had destroyed the dam to chop the move of water via a canal from the Dnipro to the Crimean Peninsula. After Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, Ukraine halted the move, however Russia restarted it final 12 months after taking the dam.

Other Russian officers claimed the assault was meant to help a Ukrainian offensive that they mentioned was sputtering — probably to permit Kyiv to reposition some forces, or to have floodwaters push again Russian artillery close to the river.

Some Western army analysts struck a cautionary notice about attempting to assign blame rapidly, and even about saying whether or not the dam collapse was intentional.

“It’s too early to tell,” mentioned Michael Kofman, the director of Russian research at CNA, a analysis institute in Arlington, Va. The catastrophe, he mentioned, “ultimately benefits nobody.”

Reporting was contributed by Riley Mellen, Haley Willis, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Paul Sonne, Andrew E. Kramer, Matthew Mpoke Bigg, Eric Schmitt and Victoria Kim.