ROGER KIMBALL: China’s ‘Peace Plan’ for Ukraine Could Pave the Way for Russian Aggression.

As far as I know, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has yet to express a judgment about “China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis,” but he can’t be pleased about a peace plan that essentially rectifies Russia’s absorption of various bits of Ukraine while giving Putin respite from fighting in order to catch his breath and rearm.

Zelenskyy will have an opportunity to make his views known soon when he and Xi have their scheduled talk.

Some observers believe he may acquiesce to something like China’s plan.

Ukraine has so far lost somewhere north of 120,000 men, fewer than Russia, but proportionality much more.

Then there’s the fact that the war has been entirely on Ukraine’s soil.

The toll on Ukrainian infrastructure has been steep.

Everyone expects Ukraine to mount some sort of counter-offensive in the spring—which began on March 20—but few observers believe that Ukraine can prevail absent massive aid from the West.

Will that aid be forthcoming?

Opinions differ.

I doubt it.

But how would we know? How to win the war that everyone is losing. “Zelensky, the Western media’s hero of liberal democracy, has banned political opposition. That may be understandable, if still lamentable, in wartime. But who will hold his government accountable after the war? The aim of any war is a superior postwar order. If the White House or global democracy gurus such as Anne Applebaum and Francis Fukuyama can’t offer a credible postwar scenario, we should assume this war will end like most of our others since the dying days of the Cold War.”