BRUSSELS — A top diplomat from the European Union has accused Russia of not taking Brussels seriously and said it will likely backfire against Moscow.

For being excluded from official negotiations with Russia, the EU is growing increasingly disillusioned. The Russian government met with their American counterparts last week and held discussions with NATO member countries. While some EU members are NATO members, the top diplomats from EU have not participated in direct talks with Moscow.

The EU tried to alleviate tensions by visiting Ukrainian officials and talking regularly with the United States via its members, such as Germany. Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign affairs minister, visited Moscow on Tuesday, for example, where she met with her counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

When asked if Russia takes the EU seriously, Stefano Sannino, secretary general of the European external action service, the diplomatic service of the EU, said: “No, it doesn’t.”

After the Kremlin annexed Crimea illegally in 2014, relations between Russia and EU have been at a low point. The relationship between Russia and the EU fell apart when Lavrov declared that the EU is an “unreliable partnership” with Josep Borrrell, the EU’s top diplomat standing beside him at a press conference.

They have the option of choosing to make this choice. [Russia]You have done, it will be contrary [to]They are pursuing their own interests by imagining a multipolar world where the United States and Russia can do the same. Sannino stated Wednesday that the world has become more complicated because of this.

Russia looks back a bit to the middle of the 19th Century, the start of the 20th perhaps.[ing]He said, “at the present world and what is it, the European Union today.”

He echoed the comments of Vsevolod Chentsov (the Ukrainian ambassador to EU), who said this week to CNBC that Russia needs to reinvent itself into a modern country. stop clinchingTo the idea, shall we say, of the rebuilding of the Soviet Union.

The European Union (which brings together 27 countries) is frequently criticized for its slow, bureaucratic approach to policymaking. For laws to be effective, there must be consensus on many issues.

Sannino however stated that, despite all its complexity, the EU was “an important player.”

“We might have our issues, our challenges, our complexities. This is not something I deny. However, this doesn’t mean that the European Union has stopped being created. [it]It is not an important actor, in all aspects. “We are who we are: 500 million people. We also have the largest, most significant market in the globe,” he stated.