ANKARA, May 12. /TASS/. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that he will not allow the opposition to lambast Russia and its President Vladimir Putin. He said it during a speech in Istanbul Friday, addressing opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who previously claimed that Russia interferes in the Turkish elections.

"You [Kilicdaroglu] have to excuse me, but I will not allow [you] to attack Putin. Because you don’t know, you won’t understand what it is to control the state," Erdogan said, according to TRT.

He also noted that Turkey’s relations with Russia are "better and just as developed and important as with the US."

"Our relations with Russia are currently not equal to our interaction with the US. If we look at our foreign trade volume with Russia, then it is larger than with the US. That’s the situation," Erdogan said.

On Thursday, Kilicdaroglu posted a tweet in Russian, calling on Moscow not to interfere in the upcoming May 14 election. He claimed that Russia is behind some "montages, conspiracies and recordings," which were discovered in Turkey earlier. The politician did not specify what he referred to exactly. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov decisively debunked rumors that Moscow may interfere in the Turkish elections, underscoring that only liars spread rumors like this.