President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that a unipolar world order cannot solve the mounting crises on the globe and Russia advocates a multipolar world.

Speaking after a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi in the southern resort of Sochi, Putin said that after the Cold War, "somebody had an illusion that the world is unipolar and all problems can be resolved from one center."

"This is not so. The number of crises is mounting, and possibilities of their settlement are lessening," he said, quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency.

Russia will independently determine its place in the world and seek a balanced and multipolar world order, Putin said.

Prodi, for his part, said there are many conflicts in the world that need to be settled, referring to tensions surrounding Iran, Iraq, the Middle East, Afghanistan and Somalia.

"There are a lot of open fronts in the world, and time has come to close at least one of them," he said.

Source: Xinhua