Trump Route fund chair Sokolov buys second-largest Armenian mine

An American company headed by Russian-born American investor Konstantin Sokolov has obtained the Teghut copper-molybdenum mine in Armenia. Sokolov was recently appointed by the US State Department to ‘oversee’ the fund for the implementation and development of the Trump Route.

Documents from Armenia’s online register of legal entities, according to RFE/RL, show that Dynamic Frontier Holdings has become the new shareholder of Cuprum RA, the company operating the Teghut mine.

Public records indicate that the company was incorporated in Texas in August 2025 and is not registered in Armenia. Documents obtained by RFE/RL from the Texas tax registry identify Sokolov, who is registered in Florida, as the company’s head.

Previously, RFE/RL reported that Sokolov was in talks to acquire just under a 50% stake in the mine, one of the largest in Armenia, by purchasing the shares from the sanctioned Russian state-owned VTB Bank.

Sokolov is known for a series of acquisitions and investments in Armenia. In January 2024, his Fedilco Group, co-owned with Chinese investor Zhe Zhang, acquired majority stakes in Armenia’s largest telecommunications company, Viva-MTS. Fedilco Group, registered in Cyprus, also has shares in other communications companies in Armenia.

Following the acquisition of Viva-MTS in 2024, the Armenian government acquired a 20% stake in the company later that year in a murky deal whose details remain unclear. The company said it had donated the shares to the government.

The Armenian investigative outlet Hetq reported shortly after the acquisition that there were some questions about Sokolov’s actual role in Viva-MTS, and that other individuals might be more involved in managing the company.

More recently, on 14 July, The Guardian reported that Sokolov has been appointed as the chair of the TRIPP+ enterprise fund intended to ‘oversee’ more than $200 million earmarked for the landmark Trump Route connecting Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan through Armenian territory.

The Trump Route, or the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), is a central part of the newfound US engagement in the South Caucasus and a key outcome of the 2025 Washington meeting between Trump, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. The historic talks resulted in the initialling, but not the signing, of a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as laying the basis for the Trump Route.

Sokolov came to the US in 1997 aged 21, has a long track record of philanthropy and donating to political parties in the US, primarily the Republican Party.

His largest gift appears to be $100 million donated to the University of Chicago in 2025 in support of the university’s Booth School of Business, which he graduated from in 2005.

In addition, Sokolov has supported a number of Republican causes and candidates, including $11 million to Trump’s superpac during his second term and an undisclosed amount to the White House ballroom project.