The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Andrew Parsons confirmed that athletes from the Russian Paralympic Committee will be known as Neutral Paralympic Athlete while Belarusians will be Paralympic Neutral Athlete, under the respective codes of NPA and PNA.

"Their teams do not exist here, but we do believe that individual athletes who have earned their qualification to the Games have the right to compete here," said Parsons in a media conference following a meeting of the IPC Governing Board today in Beijing.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there were fears that the latter would not be able to send a delegation to China.

However, they arrived in the capital today which was lauded by the IPC's chief brand and communications officer Craig Spence.

"I think the Ukrainian delegation being here is the greatest example of human resilience we have ever seen in the Paralympic Movement," he said.

"We also always talk about challenges being opportunities and we have the world's eyes on us right now although they might not agree with the decision.

"But if we can show unity in people and use this platform to promote the fact that we can bring athletes from 48 different nations to come here and compete together in peaceful circumstances and show that when you set rules you abide by them.

"I think that sends a very strong message to the world leaders."

Despite many criticising the IPC for today's decision not to implement an outright ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes, Spence urged that the body should not "run away from our moral obligations."

When asked, Parsons said that if he could vote to rule that a breach of the Olympic Truce would mean getting kicked out of the Paralympic Games, he would.

Russian athletes were already due to compete under a different name and logo, the RPC, at Beijing 2022 because of sanctions imposed on the country for the "cover-up of the cover-up" of the manipulation of anti-doping data at the Moscow Laboratory.