MINSK, March 19. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said many conflicts in the world could have been averted if the Soviet Union had continued to exist.

"If the Soviet Union had existed to this day, we would have been able to avoid all kinds of conflicts in the world," he said in an interview with Japan’s TBS television that was posted on the Belarus-1 YouTube channel on Saturday. "The West and America always had to reckon with the Soviet Union’s position."

"The world was multipolar. One pole counterbalanced the other," Lukashenko went on to say. "The cause of what’s now happening in the world is unipolarity, a monopolization of our planet by the United States."

Lukashenko lamented the Soviet breakup.

"I was born and lived in that country. I was loyal to that country," he said. "I was a member of the Communist party."

"To me, just like to the entire world that has now realized this, it was a tragedy," Lukashenko said. "The collapse of the Soviet Union is a tragedy.".