Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed strong support Thursday for his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who faces tough presidential and parliamentary elections next month, hailing the leader with “ambitious goals,” AFP and Agerpres reported.

Putin spoke during a video conference ceremony to mark the opening of Turkey’s first Russian-built nuclear power plant, hailing a “landmark project” in relations between Moscow and Ankara.

This plant “is a convincing example of everything that you, President Erdogan, are doing for your country, for the development of its economy, for all citizens of Turkey,” Putin said.

“I want to say unequivocally: you know how to set ambitious goals and confidently try to achieve them,” Putin said in particularly warm words that testify to the close personal relationship between the two leaders in recent years.

“This ceremony shows that the Turkish government and the president personally pay great attention to the development of Russian-Turkish relations in all spheres,” the Kremlin leader continued.

“We support this position and are convinced that close cooperation and partnership between Russia and Turkey is mutually beneficial,” he emphasized.

It was perhaps the most difficult choice since he came to power

The clear show of support comes as Erdogan is in the midst of twin presidential and legislative elections on May 14 that could be the most difficult since he came to power in 2003.

Since coming to power in the early 2000s, Erdogan and Putin have strengthened their relationship for nearly a decade, especially amid tensions between their countries and the West, AFP noted.

Despite their different interests, they cooperate in several areas, for example in Syria. In addition, the Turkish president is one of the few leaders who have good relations with both Moscow and Kyiv, despite the conflict in Ukraine.

The grand opening of the Akkuyu plant is one of the symbols of this partnership, “one of the most important joint projects in the history of Russian-Turkish relations,” Putin said Thursday.

Recalling that Moscow sent humanitarian aid after the earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey, Putin said that Russia is “always ready to extend a friendly hand.”

“We are aware of the difficult tasks that the Turkish government and the president have to solve in the field of reconstruction (…) and are ready to continue providing the necessary help and assistance to our Turkish partners,” the Russian president said.

“Akkuyu is the largest joint investment between Turkey and Russia”

The Akkuyu nuclear power plant (southeastern Turkey), built by the Russian consortium Rosatom, received its first load of nuclear fuel on Thursday in a ceremony attended by a video conference of both the Turkish president and his Russian counterpart, EFE notes.

Erdogan’s participation in the event was particularly expected after he canceled election events he had planned to organize the day before and on Thursday due to an alleged illness on Tuesday.

The Turkish government on Wednesday evening denied rumors of President Erdogan’s hospitalization and alleged cardiac arrest, saying he was suffering from gastroenteritis and was now on the mend.

In his video speech, Erdogan emphasized the “big step” of sending Russia’s first batch of nuclear fuel to Turkey to provide the country with domestically produced nuclear energy.

“Akkuyu is the largest joint investment between Turkey and Russia, worth 20 billion dollars. It will cover 10% of our electricity needs, it is a strategic investment,” Erdogan said.

The Turkish government has announced that once the fuel is loaded into the first reactor, the testing phase will begin and the first reactor will be operational later this year. The other three reactors will be activated at a rate of one per year, after which the plant will have a total capacity of 4,800 megawatts, EFE reports.

However, a few hours before the ceremony, the general director of Rosatom, Oleksiy Likhachev, told the Russian news agency TASS that the plant will start operating normally only in 2025.

Also, the Eastern Mediterranean Environmental Platform (DAÇE) stated that “the plant will not start operating with fuel delivery, as its construction has not been completed.”

“We think it’s a political maneuver,” (DACE) said, referring to Erdogan’s numerous inaugurations during the May 14 presidential and parliamentary election campaign.

DAÇE criticized the construction of the station in an area about 250 kilometers from the fault that caused a very destructive earthquake in February that killed more than 50,000 people.