Sakharov European Parliament Prize Laureate, Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov will speak at the EP plenary meeting in Strasbourg on Tuesday, November 26.

This was announced in Brussels on Friday at a press conference before the plenary meeting of the European Parliament, which will be held in Strasbourg from November 25 to November 28, said head of the press service Delphine Cotard.

"Oleh Sentsov will be in Strasbourg next week. He is the winner of the Sakharov Prize 2018 and he will be in a formal sitting on Tuesday from 12:00 to 12:30 followed by the press conference with EP President Sassoli at 12:45," Cotard informed.

It is expected that at the same time the awards ceremony will be held.

As part of the announcement of the plenary meeting's agenda, the head of the press service also announced that on Wednesday, November 27, a new European Commission will vote, before which there will be a debate with Ursula von der Leyen, elected as President of the European Commission, within which she will present her team and objectives of the new commission. "It will be simple majority vote," she said.

Sentsov was nominated for the Sakharov Prize by a group of the European People's Party in 2018. Member of the Group of the European People's Party Michael Gahler, the initiator of Sentsov's nomination for the Sakharov Prize, earlier noted that the Ukrainian was awarded "for freedom of thought and in recognition of his peaceful protest against the illegal occupation of his native Crimea, as well as for courage, determination and belief in supporting human dignity, democracy, the rule of law and human rights."

Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov was last year's Sakharov Prize laureate. Until recently, he was serving a 20-year prison sentence in Russia for "plotting terrorist acts" against the Russian "de facto" rule in Crimea. He was released on September 9 following a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine.

The European Parliament has been awarding the Sakharov Prize since 1988 to individuals and organizations that defend human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The first Sakharov Prize was awarded to the former president of the Republic of South Africa Nelson Mandela and, posthumously, to a Soviet dissident Anatoly Marchenko. In 2017, the Sakharov Prize was awarded to the democratic opposition in Venezuela.