Bowing to immense pressure from European Union and the United States, Russia has increased the number of international monitors for the State Duma parliamentary elections to be held on December 2.

The chairman of the Duma Standing Committee on International Relations, Konstantin Kosachyov said on Monday that Parliament’s speaker Boris Grizlov sent letters to heads of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly suggesting an increase in the number of international observers from 30 to 55.

The decision to raise the number of monitors comes following protest by the OSCE’s election monitoring wing the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), which accused Moscow of continuously denying entry visas into Russia and of being unwilling to cooperate with the organisation.

A letter sent to the Russian Central Election Commission said that organisation, whose presence at elections is seen as vital by most Western governments, “regretted” that it “would be unable to deliver its mandate.”

Denying the accusations, the Central Election Commission chairman Vladimir Churov said “All the relevant documents, including visas, are with the Warsaw-based office ODIHR. I do not see what could have prompted such a decision,”

Russia last month sent a letter to the OSCE asking for the delegation’s size to be limited to 70 people — far short of the 465 sent to Russia’s last Duma elections four years ago.

The Bush administration supported the decision by the OSCE to cancel plans to send international monitors for. “We understand this decision is a result of what ODIHR termed “unprecedented” restrictions on its mission,” the US State Department said.