Several aspects of relations between braces and non-degenerate involutive set-theoretic solutions of the Yang-Baxter equation are discussed and many consequences are derived. In particular, for each positive integer $n$ a finite square-free multiperm
utation solution of the Yang-Baxter equation with multipermutation level $n$ and an abelian involutive Yang-Baxter group is constructed. This answers a problem of Gateva-Ivanova and Cameron. It is also proved that finite non-degenerate involutive set-theoretic solutions of the Yang-Baxter equation whose associated involutive Yang-Baxter group is abelian are retractable in the sense of Etingof, Schedler and Soloviev. Earlier the authors proved this with the additional square-free hypothesis on the solutions. Retractability of solutions is also proved for finite square-free non-degenerate involutive set-theoretic solutions associated to a left brace.
