As a child he attended Saint Josaphat Buchatskiy, a Ukrainian Catholic parochial school in Buchach.

[2] Kostenko received his bachelor's degree in 2013 and was a first-year graduate student in geography at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, in Western Ukraine.

[3] He was also a regular contributor to the Ukrainian Wikipedia under the nickname Ig2000, creating more than 280 articles on aviation, economics, football and other subjects.

[1] Kostenko went to Kyiv on 18 February 2014 to take part in the Euromaidan demonstrations, the pro-Western movement that broke out after Ukraine's government refused to ratify its earlier decision to join the European Union (EU).

The confrontation between protesters and police worsened in the late hours of 19 February 2014, and snipers began shooting at demonstrators.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announced the award during the 2014 Wikimania Conference in August in London.