Placing sanctions on Japan was an affront and an insult to them, as the U.S. and Japan were allies up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Japanese expansion that had been going on for ten years prior to Pearl Harbor had been getting more and more aggressive and the U.S. and European powers hadn't really done anything more than what's happening to Russia today.
First they condemned the actions and then they strongly condemned the actions. Then they really upped the pressure by issuing trade restrictions accompanied by a strongly worded condemnation. Then came the real punishment: trade sanctions and a harsh letter of condemnation.
So while Putin plays from Hitler/Stalin's playbook of 75 years ago, the EU/US are playing by the same playbook from 75 years ago...
I have been reading M Stanton Evan's masterful biography of Tail Gunner Senator Joe McCarthy "Black Listed by History"
I say have been reading because its 600 pages, fortunately available on Amazon Whispersync for voice.
McCarthy and his source was correct about the deep penetration of the US State Department by communists agents. The US Army's decoding work was quite impressive and its Vennona decrypts prove that McCarthy was correct, they were only released in 1996 but the codes had been cracked since 1946. The penetration of the state department began via intelligence analysis's, language translators from outside service organisations. Only the FBI wasn't penetrated, probably because the career path was via plodding police work and a promotion structure however the FBI did not have benefit of the US Armies work, they did have their own Hoover directed wire taps. The legal system was seemingly penetrated, Hoover watched boggled as case after case of red handed evidence collapsed.
What needs to be understood is that communists are 'true believers' and intrinsically specialists at understanding and destroying political and social structures, that's what they do, study and they are good at it.
They were just in the state department but influential academic journals, correspondents. They were able to plant, under directions from Moscow, misleading information that would sour US Japan relations so as to prevent a US Japan peace treaty, something which was showing signs of developing.
Moscow's aim was to prevent a US Japan peace treaty so that Japan would be occupied fighting against the USA, thereby freeing up Moscow's resources for Europe. Stalin's entire career, and that of many communists, was getting other folks to fight and then to walk in and clean up.
The communist network ran deep and it ran into Japan as well as it did in Britain. Two IPR assistance in the USA Ozaki and Saionji had deep connections to the Japanese power structure and helped plant false information into japan also to sour US relations.
The planting of false information was also used to induce the US state department to advise that it was Chinese Communists rather than Nationalists who were fighting the Japanese and to direct aid away from the Nationalists. The Nationalists were also blackened with false accusations of corruption etc. In fact the opposite was true, ChiCom strategy was to have the Nationalists fight the Japanese and then to occupy the land the Nationalists had liberated.
They were not just spying, that was the least of it. They were creating influential networks, practicing psychological warfare, planting false information. Japan was Russia's enemy both as a nation and politically.
McCarthy was a farm boy, he ran a chicken farming business, paid for his own education as a lawyer, worked as a judge where he was known for his fairness to divorced women, he then volunteered for the USMC (he was exempt from the draft) where he worked in intelligence, debriefing aviators after a mission. He flew 13 missions. Some in the tail gun position where he could use a camera for strike analysis. I like him.