Beniamin Matevosyan: is Russia the third party in TRIPP?

(Did Nikol Pashinyan know about the Americans’ decision?)

The U.S. State Department’s decision to hand management of the newly created TRIPP+ Enterprise Fund to venture investor Konstantin Sokolov could fundamentally change perceptions of the American presence in the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Officially, the fund, capitalized at more than $200 million, is meant to invest in critical infrastructure, energy, transport, and mineral extraction in the region, effectively providing financial backing for the strategic “Trump Route” (TRIPP).

However, the identity of the fund’s newly appointed chairman forces a look at this ostensibly American initiative from an entirely different angle. Sokolov is not merely a major businessman who has become one of the biggest donors to the U.S. administration, having contributed millions of dollars to White House-linked projects. He is an entrepreneur of “deep Russian origin,” so to speak, whose business career is inextricably tied to St. Petersburg, and whose current activities in Armenia include ownership of former Russian state assets — Viva (formerly Viva-MTS), Ovio (formerly Rostelecom), and the Teghut deposit (VTB previously owned and financed the Teghut copper-molybdenum deposit). The fact that Moscow painlessly transferred or sold its state assets specifically to Sokolov points directly to an extremely high level of trust in him on the part of Russian authorities and his complete acceptability to the Kremlin.

In this light, earlier statements by Russian diplomats take on an entirely new meaning. To note, Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Mikhail Galuzin, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, and other Russian officials had previously openly stated Moscow’s readiness to explore options for its own involvement in the TRIPP project, hinting at Russian Railways’ unique expertise in the region. Judging by Washington’s latest personnel decisions, the American side did not just hear the signals from Moscow, it effectively acted on them. Sokolov’s appointment as head of the fund coordinating investment in TRIPP looks like an elegant diplomatic compromise.

Rather than directly and politically awkwardly including Russian state companies in the American project, the White House handed the financial levers of control to a man who speaks the same language as the Russian elite and belongs, mentally, to the same post-Soviet space, and who is so acceptable to official Moscow that Russian state assets in Armenia are being sold to him specifically. It appears Trump has remained true to his pragmatic logic and his informal recognition of the South Caucasus as a zone of priority influence for Moscow. Handing control of a key fund to a pro-Russian player looks like a practical implementation of a formula under which Washington is prepared to share economic influence in the region with the Kremlin.

This turn of events places Armenia’s leadership in an extremely ambiguous position. Only recently, Nikol Pashinyan, Prime Minister, was enthusiastically talking about the imminent start of power line construction under TRIPP, stressing that he had received personal assurances from Washington about the project’s priority for the U.S., while his subordinates either ruled out Moscow’s participation in the project or stayed silent on the matter. Yerevan portrayed TRIPP as a kind of “geopolitical shield,” not against Baku and Ankara, but against Russia. Reality, however, has proven far harsher and more cynical.

Sokolov’s appointment shows that, behind Yerevan’s back and bypassing its direct interests, Moscow and Washington apparently managed to reach a consensus on regional communications. This is a classic example of a major geopolitical deal, in which small countries often end up serving merely as territory for the realization of others’ plans. When Yerevan, within its foreign