David Lammy berated Russia’s first deputy permanent representative to the UN for fiddling with his mobile phone during a UN Security Council session on a joint UK-Sierra Leone draft resolution calling for a national ceasefire on Monday, 18 November. The foreign secretary criticised Dmitry Polyanskiy for looking down at the device and condemned Russia for blocking a United Nations call for a ceasefire in Sudan. Mr Lammy, who chaired the Security Council session, said: "I ask the Russian representative, in all conscience sitting there on his phone — how many more Sudanese have to be killed... before Russia will act? The war in Sudan began in April 2023 when simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital Khartoum and spread to other regions including Darfur.