The Paralympics usually only features in the Russian media in newspaper reports about the country's athletes winning medals but it has never shown the Games live and in full.

However, interest is beginning to grow in the event with the Sochi 2014 Winter Paralympics set to be staged in the country and Dvorkovich, who is also chairman of the Council on Disabled People's Affairs, said he is pushing to make the competition appear on television in full.

"The Paralympics should be shown in full on terrestrial channels, I don't doubt that," said Dvorkovich.

"I will strive for it as chairman of the council on disabled people's affairs."

He suggested that the state-owned Rossiya channel should show the Paralympic Games because it often shows "second-rate American films of the 70s and 80s".

"This obviously isn't the best choice, but here it is possible to change the situation and move forward from there," he added.

The rights to broadcast the Paralympics are held in reserve by state-owned channels but are rarely used in Russia.

Inva Media TV, a satellite channel showing programmes of interest to the disabled, have revealed that they have had to fight to show clips from the Paralympics in the past despite lack of interest from the rights-holding networks.

But despite this, Russia is one of the emerging Paralympic nations and finished in the top ten in the Paralympic medals table for the first time ever at Beijing in 2008 as they secured 18 gold medals.

The previous highest achievement for Russian Paralympians was 16 gold medals from athletes representing the former Soviet states as the Unified Team in Barcelona in 1992.

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