Mutko, the former Sports Minister who has been handed a lifetime suspension from the Olympic Games for his complicity in the Russian doping scandal, was speaking during an appearance at the European Single Distance Speed Skating Championships in Kolomna. 

A list of 350 athletes has reportedly been submitted by the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) to compete as part of the neutral team, which will be entitled "Olympic Athletes from Russia". 

Mutko expressed hope that athletes including speed skaters Denis Yuskov and Pavel Kulizhnikov will be declared eligible to compete.

"We must get over this [neutral participation] and be getting ready for the Olympics," Mutko told reporters.

"I hope the team will perform honourably. 

"Already on January 8 the team will have the first reaction to the list that we have sent, and will say who of the athletes they have questions to."

Russia were made to participate neutrally as part of a punishment for the "systemic manipulation" of the anti-doping system at the Sochi 2014 Olympics and at other events.

Forty-three Russians have so far been retrospectively disqualified from Sochi 2014 and barred from all future Olympics after being directly implicated in the tampering of urine samples - and consequently doping - at the Games.

They have all filed appeals at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which are thought likely to be heard at the end of the month. 

An IOC-commissioned panel chaired by France's Valérie Fourneyron, the new chair of the Independent Testing Authority, is responsible for deciding which Russian athletes are eligible before the decisions are rubber-stamped by another panel chaired by Aruba's Executive Board member Nicole Hoevertsz.

Three-time world champion Yuskov, who won the European 1,500 metres title yesterday, was cleared of wrongdoing by an IOC disciplinary panel last month.

He also served a four-year ban for taking marijuana from 2008.

Fellow speed skater and six-time world champion Kulizhnikov has been engulfed in two separate doping cases in his career.

He served a two-year ban after a failure for methylhexanamine before a separate suspension was lifted last year after a failure for meldonium.

Mutko is also appealing his own IOC suspension to CAS. 

He was not directly proven to have been involved but was considered in a position of responsibility, as the Sports Minister at the time. 

He has since stepped down as chair of the Russian 2018 World Cup Organising Committee and temporarily from his position as head of the Russian Football Union. 

"I want to note that the doping theme in Russian sports is greatly exaggerated," Mutko told Sport-Express.

"There were no state programmes for the concealment of doping. 

"Our athletes are open to all controls, the UK Anti-Doping Agency works on the territory of the country and you see that there are no problems in the last two years. 

"As for the criteria according to which the athletes named by you can not go to the Olympic Games, we consider them discriminatory. 

"This will be contested in the CAS and, I hope, Denis and Pavel will go to Pyeongchang."

insidethegames has contacted the International Skating Union to ascertain whether they consider it appropriate for Mutko to attend their European Championships.