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I've been hearing stuff like this for 3 years. Nothing remotely like it has happened. Lemme know when it DOES happen.

Hmm. Ukraine has been in the news for financial difficulties, but it's pretty rare that there's been any stories about Russia running out of money soon for several years..

Yes but it still has half and Russia has an incredibly low national debt unlike all Western countries. We are currently at 130% of GDP. We're in much worse financial shape than they are.

Just because Russia's percentages are better than ours doesn't put them in a better financial position. In gross amounts, we're so far past them. Health insurance (Medicare/Medicaid/CHIP/ACA) or Social Security FedGov spending are EACH almost as big as Russia's entire GDP. We can cut military funding in half and still spend over twice what Russia does on their military. And that's with these US at a rather historically low level of military spending.
Russia can't afford to maintain a single ski-jump coal carrier, much less a dozen nuclear-powered catapult-launch carriers.
Russia's newest plane is overly expensive for them; they've managed to build maybe 30, and they're too scared to even fly this "F-35 equivalent" in Ukraine because they lack other SEAD capability, and apparently it's not capable of such a mission on its own. How many F-22s and F-35s have we managed to put together? That we're not scared to actually utilize?
When has anyone even considered the rubble as a reserve currency? Russia's economy depends on hydrocarbons, mining, and military exports. These US is much broader and technologically advanced.

Russia has a massive artillery advantage and has the advantage in air power. Lots of indications are it is Ukraine that has taken worse casualties than Russia....which you'd expect from the side that is heavily outgunned like they are.

Russia's artillery advantage isn't that big. They have volume, but no accuracy and require 3-4x more shells to achieve the same effect. They have the ammo manufacturing, but not the support to maintain the full system properly. And as I mentioned above, their slight air advantage is useless when they have no SEAD capability. All they do is fire long-range missiles from deep in Russia. Not much more effective than an artillery battery.

It would be more embarrassing by far for them to lose... For the West it would be nice if Ukraine were to win. Russia views it as existential to win.

That's their problem, starting an offensive special military operation. Russia's lost "existential" fights before, it'll just take enough moms to finally realize how many sons they're losing. Or Russia to realize their paranoia-induced antagonism is what drives these countries into NATO's arms. If they hadn't invaded Ukraine, then Finland wouldn't have seen the need to add what, 800 miles to the Russia-NATO border? Of course, NATO's just an excuse, Putin really just wanted the land.

I've already outlined that I don't buy these casualty figures at all.

You don't think Russia is losing men at a 4:1 ratio, yet you'll believe Ukraine is losing them at a 5:1 ratio?