Paul Moss

Belarus is aiding the war and doing everything really that Russia asks of it, except for committing its own troops.

It follows from that that anything that eases the economic pressures on Belarus is helpful for Russia too.

And Russia, of course, will have been deeply involved

in these negotiations between America and Belarus.

So Putin is also watching carefully for the kind of deal that he might be able to hope for.

Former Ambassador Nigel Gould-Davies.

The man, once known as Prince Andrew, has been told he won't be investigated over a recent allegation involving his accuser, Virginia Giuffre.

A newspaper had claimed that he tried to dig up dirt on Miss Giuffre, the woman who said she'd been forced to have sex with him by Jeffrey Epstein.

More than that, it said, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, as he's now known, had given this dirt-digging task to his bodyguard, a publicly paid official.

But the police have now said they won't be investigating this allegation any further.

A decision Ms Jouffre's family said was a disappointment.

Here's our correspondent, Helena Wilkinson.

In October, the Mail on Sunday alleged it had seen emails in 2011 which the former prince had sent to Jeffrey Epstein and Queen Elizabeth's Deputy Press Secretary, Ed Perkins.

The paper claimed that in the messages he wrote that Virginia Dufresne had a criminal record in the US and that he had given her date of birth and social security number to his on-duty personal protection officer.

It was alleged that he was trying to dig up dirt on his accuser

ahead of the publication of a photograph showing him with his arm around Miss Dufresne.

She took her own life earlier this year and was one of Jeffrey Epstein's most prominent accusers.

The police said in a statement it had carried out an assessment of the newspaper claims, which hadn't revealed any evidence of criminal acts or misconduct.

Scotland Yard said should new and relevant information be brought to its attention, including in the release of material in the US, it would assess it.

This is a reference to the images and documents being published about Epstein by congressional Democrats.