(Reuters) -&nbsp;Evidence&nbsp;suggests&nbsp;this month's destruction of the huge&nbsp;Kakhovka&nbsp;dam&nbsp;in a&nbsp;Russian-controlled area of&nbsp;Ukraine&nbsp;resulted from an inside explosion set off by&nbsp;Russia, the&nbsp;New&nbsp;York&nbsp;Times&nbsp;said.
Citing engineers and explosive experts, the&nbsp;newspaper said on Friday that its investigation found&nbsp;evidence&nbsp;suggesting an explosive charge in a passageway running through the&nbsp;dam's concrete base detonated, destroying the structure on June 6.
"The&nbsp;evidence&nbsp;clearly&nbsp;suggests&nbsp;the&nbsp;dam&nbsp;was crippled by an explosion set off by the side that controls it:&nbsp;Russia," the&nbsp;Times&nbsp;said.
Separately, a team of international legal experts assisting&nbsp;Ukraine's prosecutors in their investigation said in preliminary findings on Friday it was "highly likely" the collapse in&nbsp;Ukraine's Kherson region was caused by explosives planted by&nbsp;Russians.
The Kremlin accuses Kyiv of sabotaging the hydroelectric&nbsp;dam, which held a reservoir the size of the U.S. Great Salt Lake, to cut off a key source of water for Crimea and distract attention from a "faltering" counter-offensive against&nbsp;Russian forces.
Ukraine&nbsp;accuses&nbsp;Russia&nbsp;of blowing up the Soviet-era&nbsp;dam, under&nbsp;Russian control since early days of its invasion in 2022, unleashing floodwater across a large swath of the battleground, destroying farmland and cutting off water supplies to civilians.
Reuters could not independently verify the claims about the explosion's cause.
The&nbsp;Times&nbsp;cited engineers as saying only a full examination of the&nbsp;dam&nbsp;after the water drains from it can establish the sequence of events leading to the destruction.
"Erosion from water cascading through the gates could have led to a failure if the&nbsp;dam&nbsp;were poorly designed, or the concrete was substandard, but engineers called that unlikely," the&nbsp;newspaper said.
&nbsp;
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by William Mallard)

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Evidence suggests Russia blew Kakhovka dam in Ukraine - New York Times