Can Putin count on Xi Zinping?

What is really going on between Vladimir Putin and his Chinese buddy Xi Zinping? Based on what Jake Sullivan, US National Security Adviser, has been saying, Putin has been begging Xi for some Chinese armed drones. This is extraordinary. Surely Putin and his generals must have done enough preplanning to assess whether they had enough weapons to mount the invasion of Ukraine? Do the Russians seriously have such limited supplies of drones that they needed to turn to China for help? Or is it all about getting Beijing on side by offering lots of useless roubles to pay for drones to show to the US and Nato that if there is going to be a big fight between Russia and the western alliance, Putin can depend on his mate in Beijing to provide military assistance. Russia and China versus the Nato alliance. Whatever Putin is up to he is surely not going to succeed in getting the Chinese leader to pledge a joint military effort against Nato? China has long-term ambitions not just to dominate the Indo-China region but to push the US down the global-pecking order - and of course grab Taiwan back in due course, whether by persuasion or force. So the last thing Xi needs right now is involvement in a full-scale war with Nato which either the Putin/Xi axis will lose or it will turn to nuclear war which would be the end of all Xi's dreams and pretty well the end of the world. Xi wants power on his own, not power shared with Putin. So surely if there is any danger of a world or world-light war, Beijing is going to get on the phone to Moscow - do they have a special hotline? - and tell Putin to calm down. Jake Sullivan has issued a warning to Beijing not to get involved in the war in Ukraine or face sanctions. That would include selling armed drones to Putin. So although Beijing won't like being told what to do or what not to do by Washington, I suspect China will get the message and will play this dangerous war game very carefully: play footsie with Putin but without embracing him with open arms (pun intended).