A ballroom donor’s firm got a Treasury waiver to buy a sanctioned Russian bank’s mine. Then State gave him a $201 million fund to run.

What happened

In October 2025, the White House listed Konstantin Sokolov, a Russian-born Chicago investor, as one of the private donors to Trump’s White House ballroom. The amount has not been disclosed. Days later, on October 27, a Texas company he manages, Dynamic Frontier Holdings, applied to the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for a license to deal with VTB Bank, according to records TPM obtained through a public-records request.

OFAC issued the license on January 5, 2026, about 10 weeks later, a timeline experts described to TPM as remarkably quick. The company has said it received Treasury authorization on June 1. The U.S. sanctioned VTB in 2022 and called it a “critical artery” of Russia’s financial system. In June, Dynamic Frontier bought Teghut, Armenia’s second-largest copper mine, from VTB. VTB’s deputy chairman told Interfax the sale brought about $46.5 million, ICIJ reported.

This summer, the State Department made Sokolov chairman of the new Trans-Caspian Enterprise Fund and granted it $201 million in public money to invest in the south Caucasus and central Asia, a region that includes Armenia. Sokolov gave $11 million to MAGA Inc. in 2025, according to ICIJ. Before 2025, his only federal donations were $3,600 in 2008 to Barack Obama and a PAC supporting him, TPM reported.

Who benefited

Sokolov’s company got permission to buy a major Armenian mine from a sanctioned Russian state bank, and Sokolov got control of a $201 million public fund investing in the same region. He also holds stakes in Armenian banking and telecommunications, ICIJ reported.

Who wanted something

Sokolov needed a U.S. license to buy from VTB, which American sanctions otherwise bar. His spokesperson told ICIJ there is “no evidential basis” linking his donations to the license and told TPM there is no conflict of interest with the fund. The Treasury Department did not answer questions about the license.

Who lost out

U.S. taxpayers, whose $201 million is now overseen by an investor with private business in the region the fund invests in. “You have to ask yourself whether his involvement is going to lead to conflicts of interests,” Daniel Fried, a former State Department sanctions coordinator, told TPM. VTB, a bank that helps finance Russia’s war on Ukraine, received about $46.5 million for the mine.

Why it matters

Sanctions licenses are granted case by case, out of public view, by Treasury officials who answer to the president. Here, one went to a company run by a new major Trump donor within weeks of his ballroom gift, and the same donor was then put in charge of public money in the same region.

Sources ICIJTPMRFE/RL Armenian ServiceThe Guardian