Prague. Pavel will succeed outgoing president Miloš Zeman on 9 March. Pavel is planning to make his first foreign trips to Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine to reassure the Czech Republic's international commitments and express support for Ukraine against the 2022 Russian invasion. Polish president Andrzej Duda and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy were also the first foreign leaders he spoke to as president-elect. He also had a telephone conversation with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in the first days after the election to reaffirm the closer diplomatic relations between the Czech Republic and Taiwan, triggering criticism from China. Political views Foreign policy Pavel holds atlanticist and pro-Western views and advocates active Czech membership in the European Union and NATO. He supported Ukraine during the 2022 Russian invasion, which he described as a "war against the system of international relations", calling for military and humanitarian aid. He said that the West should have acted more forcefully in response to the invasion. He argued that following the annexation of Crimea by Russia and the control of parts of the Donbas by Russian-backed separatists, the West should have established protected corridors for civilians enforced by the OSCE. Once the invasion began, he initially expressed the view that the Russian army would be able to hold what they had occupied, and Ukraine would not have sufficient resources to push out the Russian military, including Crimea, even with the help of Western countries. In December 2022, he stated that Ukraine could win the war and pointed to the importance of aid to Ukraine for the security of the Czech Republic. In 2023, Pavel reiterated his support for Ukraine joining the NATO alliance after the 2022 Russian invasion is ended. As Chairman of the NATO Military Committee in 2018, Pavel said of the Turkish invasion of Afrin: "Turkey is a target of terrorism and has the right to defend itself." He said it was necessary not to view the Kurds as a homogeneous group, and that some of them were effectively fighting extremists. Asked if he would have fought against the West in the event of a war before November 1989, Pavel said that "a soldier defends his country and the people who live in it.... every soldier fights for the people he likes and for whom it is worth sacrificing his life". Following accusations that the Czech Republic would be mobilized and directly involved in the war