Japan this week announced it would accept refugees from Ukraine and send bulletproof vests to Kyiv — extraordinary measures taken by a country that has historically been unwelcoming to refugees and also has a self-imposed arms exports ban because of its militaristic past.

They were decisions made without “gaiatsu,” or foreign pressure, several Japanese officials note, underscoring Japan’s determination to show it will not stand for Moscow’s behavior, a stance that defies the pacifist values that undergird postwar Japanese identity…

“It’s a big awakening that there are limitations to what the U.N. can do, limitations to what diplomacy can do, limitations to what economic sanctions can do,” said Akihisa Shiozaki, a member of the governing Liberal Democratic Party who pushed for the change on refugees. “It’s not about rewriting the boundaries of what Japan can do, but filling in the details of what we may not fully anticipate, or may have overlooked, in our preparation.”