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Notes -
Sure.
And just to add to it- when I first read through Lord of the Rings many years ago, I never felt anger/contempt that the old alliance of history might not be honored. It was sad, sure, and unfortunate in the context, but also understandable- the spirit of the alliance had died long before the crisis came. The fact that the allies came was uplifting, but it was all the more uplifting because it was not an expectation/obligation- it was people who chose rather than were obligated to. Were it people who grudgingly showed up to because they had to because their masters made them on behalf of promises none of them were alive for, it would have been lesser, maybe even worse than if they had not at all. After all, if they only showed up because of a piece of paper despite the apathy or neglect, they would practically be slaves to their forefathers' whims. There's little agency in 'I'm going so because I was told I have to,' and little health in an alliance built on the same.
I think it's also worth noting / remembering that Putin is not Sauron. For all the memes of the Russian orks, the antagonist of [current year] is not the beneficiary of Tolkein-style plot armor / power. Putin is inept, incompetent, a warmonger with a midlife crisis, and even genocidal by the UN definition used in other conflicts in the world, but he is not fated by the power of plot narrative to win if Gondor's Call to Aid is not answered... and in this case, the Call to Aid, while certainly worthy, is no Gondor-scale cataclysm if it fails either, with the mobilized armies marching on without resistance.
Mind you, I was also one of those people who never really 'got' Sauron as a narrative force, and even now I can understand without sharing the sentiment some feel.
Funnily enough, the movies' interpretation of events is basically that. They added a scene in Helm's Deep where elves show up and say, "Idk, we were allied thousands of years or so or something, so we'll stick around and help out ig." Basically, completely distorting Tolkien's intentions with what Alliances represented (to say nothing of the relevance of elves in the war by that point).
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