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Duma to discuss bill on Advanced Def Research Foundation Wed.

The Foundation is also to deal with introducing the results of research and projects into practice

MOSCOW, July 4 (Itar-Tass) — The State Duma lower house of the Russian parliament gathers here on Wednesday for a plenary meeting to discuss the President-presented bill on an Advance Defense Research Foundation (ADRF). The parameters of the document are to be presented to the House members by Vice-Premier Dmitry Rogozin.

The ADRF is to be brought into being in the form of a non-profit organization the main goals of which will be to procure the defense order and subsequently monitor breakthrough research and development efforts in the interests of defense and State security and the modernization of the Army, and stimulate the development of innovative technologies in this sector. The Foundation is also to deal with introducing the results of research and projects into practice.

The tasks of the Foundation will be "to form scientific notions of possible threats that are critically significant to defense and security of the Russian Federation (RF), the causes of their emergence, and ways to eliminate them," the Kremlin press service reported earlier.

The Foundation being created is unofficially referred to as a "Russian DARPA" (an analogue of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US Department of Defense). According to Vice-Premier Rogozin's calculations, "The Foundation will handle all high-risk and fundamental research in the field of defense". "We are interested in breakthrough research not only for the needs of the Armed Forces of the RF but also for other organizations ensuring the country's security, specifically, the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service," he pointed out.

Unlike its American analogue, the domestic "breakthrough" defense research foundation will be subordinated not only to the Defense Ministry but also to the government as a whole.

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