Turkish opposition candidate and Erdogan’s main opponent in the May 14 presidential election, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, accused Russia of meddling in the election campaign and disinformation using even deepfake methods (including fake audio or video documents, with digital processing).

Kilicdaroglu made the accusations in a post on Twitter, hours after another presidential contender, Muarem Ince, withdrew his candidacy after being targeted by an online smear campaign.

“Dear Russian friends, you are behind the montages, conspiracies, Deep Fake content and tapes revealed yesterday in this country. If you want our friendship to continue after May 15, keep your hands off the Turkish state. We still support cooperation and friendship,” Kilicdaroglu wrote in a post in both Turkish and Russian.

The head of the Memleket (Motherland) party, which in the last polls secured 2% to 4% of the vote, today withdrew his candidacy for the presidency. He had faced a smear campaign online, which included a pink video that Inge claimed was the product of deepfake editing.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who maintains the lead in today’s poll (49.3% to Erdogan’s 43.7%), is expected to secure the support of most of Ince’s supporters.