Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria are expected to declare a federal system on Thursday, a move likely to further complicate peace talks in Geneva on ending more than five years of war. Russia pulled more warplanes out of Syria, a new delivery of humanitarian aid reached northern Aleppo province and U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura named a Russian academic to his team of advisers in a nod to Russia’s importance in ending fighting. But despite a more than two-week-old “cessation of hostilities” and President Vladimir Putin’s decision to pull out of Syria some of the Russian forces that have tipped the balance of the war in President Bashar al-Assad’s favor, any hopes of a breakthrough at the peace talks in Geneva remain slim. […]