MOSCOW

RUSSIA HAS DEVELOPED a bomb which, rather than killing people, leaves them unable ever to pronounce their vowels again, according to a report from British Intelligence.

“The effect on any opposing army will be devastating,” the Secret Intelligence Service report states. “Hundreds of thousands of troops unable to make themselves understood to their comrades. It is particularly effective against upper class soldiers, usually the officer ranks in most armies, because these people tend to rely more on vowel sounds than their lower class subordinates, who often grunt a series of unintelligible consonants or rely on tattoos for communication. It is curious that the weapon will probably have little effect on Israel’s military as Hebrew is famously a language without vowels in its natural state. Arabic will be exceptionally vulnerable. It’s possible this indicates a new relationship between Moscow and Jerusalem with respect to Syria. And one must always remember the large amount of Russians who form part of the population of Israel.

“The British military will suffer terribly if ever subjected to this weapon, especially the Brigade of Guards, whose clipped vowels already make orders desperately hard to understand. If the vowels are completely removed, the senior non-commissioned ranks will sound like a flock of birds in the mating season.”

The report suggests that reliance on vowels in European languages be reversed. The Russians themselves have a special protective shield which allows their troops to operate in an area where the weapons is used without any deterioration in the legendary vowel sounds produced by their language.