Russia and the United States are ready for a deal on Venezuela?

As unrest continues in Venezuela, some analysts are questioning how much support Russia will give beleaguered President Nicolas Maduro and if Moscow could be ready to strike a deal with the U.S. to end the Latin American country’s political and humanitarian crisis.

On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Maduro was prepared to leave the protest-wracked country Tuesday morning but said he had changed his mind after Russia intervened.

The two sides may be more open to discussing what to do about Venezuela behind closed doors. On Wednesday, Pompeo held a call with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with both sides once again accusing each other of destabilizing the country.

Lavrov and Pompeo have had several telephone conversations regarding Venezuela in recent weeks, ministry records show.

Some analysts think that the two heavyweight countries might be coming to some kind of deal over Maduro’s potential departure.

”(There’s) little doubt in my mind that the Russians and the U.S. have been talking for weeks about some kind of deal to ease Maduro out of office,” Timothy Ash, a senior emerging markets strategist at Bluebay Asset Management, said in a note Wednesday.

He said several factors led his to this conclusion — firstly, that Moscow had gained leverage to negotiate with the U.S. by sending military advisers to Caracas and, secondly, that President Trump had so far not signed off on new sanctions on Russia for its alleged use of a chemical weapon following the nerve agent poisoning of former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, in the U.K. in 2018.

Russia has a vested interest in backing Maduro after it gave the country financial aid. Reuters estimates that the Russian government and state energy company Rosneft have handed Venezuela at least $17 billion in loans and credit lines since 2006. It has also provided the Venezuelan government with military equipment and it has stakes in the country’s energy sector.

As such, Moscow wants to protect its assets from regime change as well as preventing the U.S. from increasing its sphere of influence. Whatever Russia’s distaste for regime change — seen as a hangover from the collapse of the Soviet Union — more analysts have questioned how far Russia is willing to go to protect Maduro.