BERLIN — Russia plans to put 600 billion rubles (about $25 billion) into technology-based research programs over a two-year period, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, speaking at a science and education conference reported by the local media.

"We have never provided this sort of money for such purposes before," Putin was quoted as saying by Interfax.

The announcement, played on Russia's NTV and reported by the local press, appears to be a confirmation of an earlier promise Putin made during a speech to the Russian Academy of Sciences in May.

The money will go toward "various federal target programs in the field of high technology" from 2008-2010.

In addition, Putin announced the creation of two national research universities and said that a five-year program for fundamental research worth 250 billion rubles (about $10 billion) had been approved.

Putin is directing enormous sums of federal money into scientific research in order to enhance national security and spark commercial activity, RIA Novosti reports.

He criticized public sector science in Russia as inefficient and holding weak commercial potential. Research is also poorly integrated with the education system, which is aggravating a shortage of scientists, he said.

Researchers are living off federal projects and have little incentive to take on more challenging commercial product development.

"The successes of basic science do not provide the necessary dynamism and quality of applied research, and they in turn do not fully take into account the real needs of the economy," Putin said on NTV.

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