Ukrainian Winter Paralympians have staged a symbolic protest at the opening ceremony of the Sochi Games, with all but one athlete boycotting the athletes' parade in protest at Russia's incursion into Crimea.

The Games opened with a spectacular ceremony and a full complement of 45 competing nations after Ukraine decided its athletes would remain in Sochi despite the ongoing standoff with Russia.

But the Ukrainians made their point by sending just one athlete around the Fisht Stadium to represent their 31-strong team. The solitary flagbearer, the Nordic skier Mykailo Tkachenko, was greeted with large cheers.

The head of the Ukrainian Paralympic committee, Valeriy Sushkevich, warned that his team would immediately boycott the Games if Russia invaded eastern Ukraine.

"If there is an escalation of the conflict, intervention on the territory of our country, God forbid the worst, we would not be able to stay here. We would go," said Sushkevich, hours before an opening ceremony that welcomed 547 athletes under the gaze of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

Since the closing ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics in the same stadium, hailed as a triumph by the International Olympic Committee and the organisers, Russian forces have entered Ukraine 300 miles to the west and sparked an international crisis.

Many countries, including Britain and the US, have scrapped plans to send official delegations to the Winter Paralympics in response to events in Ukraine.

Two of the themes of the ceremony, named Breaking the Ice and featuring more than 500 ballerinas and teams of wheelchair dancers, were "togetherness" and "fragility".

Putin, who toured the now-barrier-free Olympic Park with the Bolton-born International Paralympic Committee (IPC) president Sir Philip Craven before declaring the Games open, had said a Ukrainian boycott would be the "height of cynicism".

At the welcoming ceremony for their team in the Olympic Village, the Ukrainian athletes had chanted for peace in unison. Sushkevich said he had spoken to Putin before announcing the decision to stay.

"I repeated my one request, the one and most important request, that before and during [the Games] there will be peace," he said.

The IPC has been desperately trying to separate the sporting event, which it hopes will capitalise on the leap in profile made by Paralympic sport in London, from the politics of the ongoing situation in Crimea.

It has trumpeted the fact that 55 countries will screen action from Sochi, including the US and Brazil for the first time. Despite widespread fears that stands would be sparsely populated, the IPC said the Games were a virtual sellout with 283,000 tickets sold.

Craven said Sochi had become Russia's first accessible city and claimed the Paralympics would leave a lasting legacy in terms of improving facilities and changing attitudes towards the disabled.

"The plan and the commitment to the Russian government is for this to be spread out over time in legacy format to each of the 80 regions in Russia and that's a fantastic dream of ours to be able to influence and transform the biggest nation in the world," he said.

In his speech at the opening ceremony, he referenced the progress that had been made since Russia refused to host the Paralympics in 1980 when the Olympics came to Moscow, but said the biggest change was yet to come.

"In the same way that the city of Sochi has built a barrier-free environment for athletes and officials to enjoy, I call upon all those who experience these Games to have barrier-free minds too," he said.

Where London's volunteers were known as "games makers", he said Sochi's would come to be seen as "change makers".

Dmitry Chernyshenko, the chief executive of the organising committee, said the Paralympics represented "the power of sport to unite and inspire the world".

The French Alpine skier Marie Bochet and Canadian visually impaired cross-country skier Brian McKeever are expected to be among the international stars of the Games.

ParalympicsGB sent a squad of 15 to the Winter Paralympics – seven Alpine skiers plus three guides and a five-strong wheelchair curling team. They were led into the stadium by the 15-year-old visually impaired skier Millie Knight, the youngest athlete to represent ParalympicsGB at the Games.

The British Paralympic Association chief executive, Tim Hollingsworth, said he believed the exposure afforded the Winter Paralympics, historically smaller than its summer sibling, would lead to a "step change" both for the event and for ParalympicsGB athletes.

"We have a Games of opportunity here for the Paralympic movement. We are only competing in two sports, but we have alpine skiers and the wheelchair curling team who are starting out with real medal opportunities," said Hollingsworth.

Just as London 2012 opened the eyes of fans to a raft of new sports, Hollingsworth said he believed the spectacle of Winter Paralympic sport would also be a hit with viewers.

"With the alpine skiers, whether it's a visually impaired skier with a guide coming down a mountain at 80km/h or the sit skiers who are so close to the snow and travelling even faster – it's a remarkable sight," he said. "Sledge hockey – best described as wheelchair rugby on ice – is a fearsome game, no holds barred and a fully contact sport."