His father Volodymyr Ilyich Pristayko (1941-2008) was General lieutenant of Justice and Vice director of SBU, but since 1991 he worked in a commission of adaptation of laws to European Union standards and on rehabilitation of politically repressed.
In 1994, Prystaiko graduated cum laude from the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute’s Department of Computer Science.
Before his appointment he was since 2012 Ukrainian ambassador to Canada. He went to school in Odessa, Kyiv and Zaporizhia. Eventually, the family settled in Kyiv.
(see his profile in Ukrainian wiki).
He likes sports, earning a black belt in Taekwondo. In 1998, he received a master"s degree from the Ukrainian Academy of Foreign Trade.
He is fluent in Ukrainian, Russian and English. He began his professional career in the private business sector.
In 1994, following his family’s tradition of government service, he obtained a position at the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations of Ukraine.
At that time, the Ministry was expanding rapidly as Ukraine began to negotiate with General Agreement of Tariff and Trades/World Trade Organization. In 1997, he was transferred to the economic section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, where he tried among other things to develop trade with Asian countries. In 2000, Prystaiko became a consul to Sydney, Australia where he was involved mostly with political and economic issues. Since 2002 he worked in the Foreign Policy Directorate of the Administration of the President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma.
In December 2004, he was posted as a political counselor to the Embassy of Ukraine in Canada.
Two years later he became the acting chargé d"affaires. In 2007, he was part of Ukraine"s North Atlantic Treaty Organization negotiating team, and served as the Deputy Director General for North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In 2009, he became Deputy Chief of the Mission at the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington District of Columbia On November 8, 2012 the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovich appointed Prystaiko as Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada. He became also Ukrainian representative in the International Organization of Civil Aviation.
In December 2014 he was named Deputy Foreign Minister and head of the apparatus under Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin.
