Currently based in Paris, Dmitry Kostyukov was born in Sebastopol, USSR in 1983. His childhood in a family of high-ranking officials in the Ministry of Defence, as well as his education in a military academy, shaped his interest in the analysis of social structures. He obtained a degree in journalism from Moscow State University
(BA) and a Master's degree from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.
Subsequently, he specialized in the visual coverage of conflicts in post-Soviet regions. He has documented the conflicts in Georgia and Afghanistan. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Times Magazine and the Financial Times, among others. He has been nominated for and won several international awards, including the Sony World Photography Awards, for which he was a finalist in 2011, and NPPA: the best of photojournalism, which he won in 2010.