Editor’s Note: This article was published by the twice-weekly newsletter “The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak” on Aug. 20, 2024, and has been re-published by the Kyiv Independent with permission. To subscribe to “The Counteroffensive,” click here. An isolated land in the East is shrouded in darkness. An evil lord, worshiped as a deity, rules over it. Those who serve him live only for war, bringing nothing but death and destruction. Ukrainians may associate this description with Russia, but it’s actually an image of Mordor, a fictional country from J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy, “The Lord of the Rings…