Until recently, few people in the South Caucasus had heard of Konstantin Sokolov. Now the 52-year-old Russian-American businessman is at the center of new investment fund backed by US President Donald Trump.
In mid-July, Sokolov — who emigrated from Russia to the US at age 21 and later founded the investment firm IJS Investments in Chicago — was appointed to head a new investment fund of the US State Department.
The TRIPP+ EnterpriseFund, registered in the US as the Trans-Caspian Enterprise Fund and launched with more than $200 million (about €172.5 million) in capital, is expected to invest in countries across the South Caucasus and Central Asia and help finance the large-scale TRIPP infrastructure project, also known as the "Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity."
The "Trump Route" is a transit corridor that aims to connect Azerbaijan with its autonomous exclave of Nakhchivan through Armenian territory. The ambitious infrastructure project is part of a peace deal that Armenia and Azerbaijan signed in August 2025 with US mediation. In early June 2026, Washington and Yerevan signed a framework cooperation agreement for the project.
Experts have said construction of the "Trump Route" fits Washington's strategy of creating a trade corridor between Europe and the region that bypasses existing routes through Russia and Iran.
Sokolov buys up Russian assets in Armenia
Long before he was appointed to head TRIPP+, Sokolov had already established a foothold in Armenia.
In 2024, he acquired Viva Armenia, the country's largest telecommunications provider. Despite its subsequent partial nationalization, Sokolov continued to expand his holdings. Recently, his companies also bought up the Armenian subsidiary of Russian telecom giant Rostelecom.
An even more significant deal, however, was carried out largely out of the public eye: the purchase of the Teghut copper-molybdenum mine. The mine, which holds an estimated 450 million metric tons of ore and has Armenia's second-largest reserves, had been taken over by Russia's state-owned VTB Bank after the company accumulated massive debts. VTB is now under Western sanctions. According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Armenian service, the deal was carried out through a third-party company.
"Sokolov wanted to avoid a direct deal with the Russian bank," said Mkrtich Karapetyan, a Radio Liberty journalist who has been investigating the flow of foreign capital into Armenia.
Sokolov: Trump supporter, MAGA backer
While Armenia's government and its supporters have welcomed the influx of Western capital into the country's infrastructure projects, the opposition has highlighted serious risks.
Mesrop Manukyan, a lawmaker from the opposition Armenia Alliance, is among Sokolov's most vocal critics in parliament. He said it's alarming that a US investor has been able to acquire major stakes in the finance, mining and telecommunications sectors in just a few years.
Manukyan's faction, which advocates close ties between Armenia and Russia, opposes the TRIPP+ project. It views the "Trump Route" as a disguised "extraterritorial corridor" and the "greatest threat" to Armenia's security.
Despite his extensive investments, Sokolov remains largely unknown to the Armenian public. There are no official photos of him, and he generally avoids interviews with the local press during business trips.
His most recent visit to the capital, Yerevan, was in early August, when he met with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan. He was accompanied by Aryeh Lightstone, senior adviser to US special envoy Steve Witkoff.
In Western media, however, Sokolov is known not only for his business ventures in the US and Switzerland but also for his political involvement. Sokolov is a major donor to the US Republican Party and a Trump supporter. According to The Associated Press, he donated about $11 million to Trump's MAGA movement over the course of a year.
'Compromise' between Moscow and Washington?
Benyamin Poghosyan of the Armenian think tank APRI sees two main reasons for Sokolov's appointment to head the fund.
The first is political. Appointing an American with Russian roots could be "a subtle gesture by Washington aimed at easing Moscow's fierce criticism of the project," he told DW.
The second, however, is pragmatic. "Perhaps Russia has nothing to do with it at all. Sokolov may simply have been chosen because he has a deep understanding of the business environment in the former Soviet Union — and because he knows Armenia and how its government works," said Poghosyan.
At the same time, the sheer scale of the investment and the financier's Russian roots are fueling speculation in Armenia. Social media users in the country are debating whether Sokolov, who was born in St. Petersburg, could be a secret "compromise figure" between Moscow and Washington. Supporters of the theory point to the ease with which US companies have acquired formerly Russian assets subject to Western sanctions.
Other observers have refuted the idea, noting that Sokolov has publicly and sharply criticized the Russian government and its war against Ukraine. The funds provided by the US State Department, running through 2036, are seen as flagging Washington's long-term strategic intentions in the region. During his visit to Yerevan, Aryeh Lightstone told Armenian news outlet CivilNet that the more than $200 million in initial funding could be viewed as a starting point for future investments.
Aram Sargsyan, head of the Republican Party of Armenia and an ally of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, also rejects the idea that Sokolov is a "compromise figure" for Moscow. He emphasized the practical value of Sokolov's background, seeing it as an opportunity rather than a cause for concern.
"Sokolov has significant business contacts, understands the Russian mentality perfectly, speaks the language and knows how to work with relevant Russian institutions," he said.
This article was originally written in Russian.
