>> "nightline." tonight, soaring prices. >> i don't remember it being $5. >> from groceries to record-high gas prices. americans are feeling the squeeze. >> i have missed meals so that the kids could eat. >> there's my beautiful salon. >> and trying to hang on to their livelihoods. >> how are you doing? >> i'm still holding it together for one more day. the best that i can. plus, ukraine's humanity. amidst a brutal war the country's youngest and most vulnerable displaced. >> at this orphanage they're trying to give these kids some enrichment. they don't know what war is. >> and we're with the woman they call the angel of lviv. >> the refugees are coming and

coming. they are more and more. >> the everyday heroes making a difference. and historic discovery. a first glimpse of sir ernest shackle-ton's "endurance," more than 100 years after its infamous sinking. >> announcer: "nightline" will be right back.

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good evening. thank you for joining us. inflation is spiking and gas prices are soaring. it feels like americans are taking a hit everywhere. trying to do more with less. >> these packs used to have about seven to ten pieces of chicken in it. >> reporter: armed with a list and cautious optimism tamika calhoun of jackson, mississippi is trying to keep her family of seven fed. >> i have four mornings worth of breakfast right here. i don't remember it being $5. they asked me to get chips and other snacks that they've been wanting. so that's at the bomb of the list. >> reporter: staying on budget at the grocery store not easy as inflation grips the country. >> i ended up spending $108.30. $8 over. >> reporter: tamika says she's

now spending about $50 per meal to feed her family, up from about $35 last year. and to make matters worse, the whole family got covid on christmas. tamika, a housing counselor, and her partner missing several weeks of play. their savings since depleted. and now they're living paycheck to paycheck. >> i have missed meals so that the kids could eat. i wouldn't tell them of course because they'll try to, you know, share their food with me. we have a big family and the price of meat has gone up. >> reporter: and so has gas. like most parents, tamika's constant ly picking up and dropping off her five children, not to mention drivin to and from work. she says she's now spending about $75 a week on gas. up 15 bucks from last year. >> i have talked to the kids about inflation. they're noticing the gas prices because i always say oh, man, i should have got gas when it was a little cheaper. and when i picked up the smaller kids and passed through there they were like oh, the gas went

up, you should have got it this morning. >> reporter: she's working overtime hours to bridge the gap. >> i have zero work hoof life balance. >> reporter: tamika's story echoing millions of other americans, all feeling the pinch as prices for basic necessities like food and gas skyrocket. >> what's driving this? >> inflation -- >> the cost of just about everything is still going up. >> the united states seeing a 7.5% increase in consumer prices over the past year. the biggest spike in four decades. the record numbers fueled by supply chain disruptions. a country roaring back to life post-pandemic. and now the russian invasion of ukraine. >> the invasion has added fuel to an already well-kindled inflation fire. energy prices have skyrocketed, but we're also seeing grain prices skyrocket. ukraine is the bread basket of europe. russia is the third largest oil producer in the world and oil prices are set on a global scale. that loss in production is showing up as a surge in oil

prices and surge in prices at the gas pump. >> and with president biden announcing a u.s. ban on russian oil, gas prices are expected to keep climbing. already this week the nation's average gasoline price hit a record high. $4.25 a gallon. >> it becomes a much more vicious cycle for those lower-income households, more rapidly with inflation than it does for higher-wage households who have this luxury of not only being able to better absorb the blow from inflation due to not only higher wages but they also have much higher savings. >> reporter: and some economists warn inflation may linger well into 2023, leaving americans to figure out how to make ends meet. >> just arriving at the salon. >> so i'm at my shop and i've just completely switched out my color lines. >> reporter: for small business owner keith walker of virginia, he's feeling the pinch at home and at work. these shelves used to be full of

tubes of color before covid. and even just recently until the price of color went up per tube about nine cent because of shipping. >> reporter: we first met the father of four at the height of the first wave of covid-19 in 2020. as he struggled to get a small business loan to keep his hair salon afloat during shutdowns. there is a calmness to you in the midst of this storm. what does that come from? >> my faith. and my children. as frustrating as it is, i know that it will be okay. and i just have to hold it together one more day is what i tell myself each day. just hold it together one more day. be strong for the kids. one more day. and things will change. >> when we last spoke you said,

"i just have to hold it together one more day." so today two years later how are you doing? >> i'm still holding it together for one more day. the best that i can. right when we got to the top of that hill the next day, boom, here we are again with inflation. >> we're on a hunt for cheap gas this morning. >> reporter: this is his new routine, sicircle the neighborhd searching for the cheapest gas pump. >> $65 in gas gas and that's just for a few days of going to work and coming back. >> my food budget was 125 to 150 a week. it's gone to about 205. well, last -- last week it was 225. >> and even as things have gotten tougher, walker says raising prices at his business is not an option. >> as a business owner you're a realist. how much longer can you go at this pace? >> i'm like what's the next step for me? do i go and start using suave,

you know, 99 cent? which is not 99 cent anymore. and you know the dollar store is not the dollar store anymore either. it's $1.25 now. i don't think i can get much leaner. but we'll see. one more day. you never know. >> reporter: food pantries have always kept the most vulnerable americans fed. but the need is even greater now. >> what's in the bag is we have tuna, green beans and rice. >> reporter: city harvest is one of the largest hunger relief organizations in new york city. rescuing and delivering more than 250 million pounds of food during the pandemic. about twice as much as they had planned for. >> this food will come in. and ideally it's out within 24 hours. >> ceo gilley stevens says its mission is now coming at a

higher cost. >> reporter: with inflation what impact has it had on your cost and your clientele? >> we don't typically buy food. it's always donated unless we're in a disaster moment. and the pandemic's had us in disaster mode for a couple of years now. so we're still buying food. >> rising prices in food, fuel and utilities making the process of getting goods to those in need that much more difficult. since july 2021 city harvest has seen a 17% increase in food sourcing. inflation pushing transportation costs from 18 cents per pound to 21 cent per pound. are you having to recalibrate in any way now because we're in the midst of inflation and there's no sign it's going to get better? >> the sort of slight anxiety for us comes from a look to the next fiscal year and then the fiscal year after that. food is viewed as an elastic expense. you can't not pay your rent or your utility bill but you can deciding r not to go to the

grocery store and come to a food pantry instead. so we need to be ready to support new yorkers forever a few years to come. and we will be. >> reporter: for tamika calhoun the goal is to keep her home a sanctuary. >> coming home and seeing my kids and seeing that they're happy, that's 100% worth it. it makes all of this worth it. >> reporter: each day may be a struggle right now. but she insists it's also a blessing. >> the world isn't going to change for us. so we've got to change the way we think and change for the world. and just stay encouraged, do whatever you have to do to encourage yourself. and up next, we'll meet the angel of lviv, and the other ukrainians who are helping to ease the immense pain of war. yp? once-weekly ozempic® can help.

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the russian assault on ukraine's cities took a dramatic turn today with the bombing of a maternity hospital in the battered city of mariupol. pregnant women and children were among the wounded. the bomb left a two-story-deep crater. the head of unicef condemning the attack saying "it underscores the horrific toll this war is exacting on ukraine's children and families." abc's chief national correspondent matt gutman has been meeting with those families and those trying to escape the conflict. he reports tonight from western ukraine. >> reporter: those giggles on

the merry-go-round. the melody of patty cake. for a moment, just a moment, these kids can forget they've been evacuated from the biggest armed conflict in europe since world war ii. for two weeks a goliath has pummeled a david. hundreds of lives lost. high-rise apartment blocks. maternity wards. schools pulverized. and the merciless shelling leading to a historic exodus. over the past two weeks we've documented the nation on the move in ukraine. crossing into ukraine, we saw the refugee crisis crashing into the border with poland. russia had just invaded and our vehicle creaked through the

first wave of what would soon be more than 2 million refugees. a number expected to swell to 6 million by war's end. millions more displaced internally. tens of thousands were already massed there. ukrainians but also south asians and africans living and studying in ukraine. blending into a surge of humanity yearning for safety. this girl holding her stuffed animal aloft. hundreds jostled, squeezing through that one set of steel gates to poland. and everywhere the partings. we saw this father rushing toward the border carrying all he could. and this man holding his wife's face in his hands. their tears meeting on their cheeks, tenderly kissing, oblivious to the thousands around them. his name is sasha. hers svetlana. they hold each other as if banking each other's smell. you want to stay here? >> of course. >> reporter: to fight? >> yes. >> reporter: he tells me he has to go and walks off to war.

>> i'm sorry. >> reporter: at lviv's train station, now the hub of that exodus, refugees skittering across the tracks, hoping to find a train out. >> the next train to poland is 5:00 p.m. >> reporter: a train with space. it's winter in eastern europe. there's biting wind nipping fingers and ears. in the tunnels beneath the station they're bunched so tightly the refugees can only shuffle forward. over 1.5 million have fled the country. millions here have fled their homes. yuliana shchurko is one of them. >> this is absolutely chaos. >> just in line for some possible maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow morning, maybe in two days. there is no new train to poland because poland cannot accept any more trains. >> reporter: the woman with the flaming red hair and command presence had only been there for less than an hour.

>> and refugees are coming and coming. they are more and more and more. so every hour that's 5,000 to 10,000 new people coming. >> every hour 5,000 to 10,000 new people are coming? >> yes. >> here. >> here there were ten -- three hours ago there were ten times less people. ♪ >> reporter: but over the coming days yuliana would spend more time in those tunnels than at home. some people here calling her the angel of lviv. >> so this is your tenth day coming here? >> ninth. ninth day coming here. sometimes we have the joke that oh, you're coming to your job. >> they think this is your job. >> reporter: she works the crowds with a box of medicine under her arm. >> how many of them are asking -- >> usually when i have this, this thing, that's for half an hour. >> reporter: they finish it in

half an hour. >> yes. so that's really needed. >> reporter: in that tunnel she carefully cuts out the pills and hands them out. she confides in me that these are herbal pills. basically placebos. the active ingredient? comfort. >> i don't know. against stress and panic attacks, just a very simple herbal things. most of them are needed. >> reporter: are people asking you for it? >> yes, yes. they are asking do you have anything just to calm them down. so i tell them what i have and they usually ask one or another. usually very simple medicine, just for calming the people down. >> reporter: on that day she watched yet another train unload. this one from battle-scarred kharkiv. but this car carrying the most fragile cargo. some 30 disabled children tenderly handed from one volunteer to another. there are no gurneys, no

stretchers. so these children were gently placed into that tarpaulin, carried across the tracks, down those stairs, through the crowd to a bus. and among the most vulnerable in this country, those soft faces gazing into that screen, propped up on that teddy bear. the orphans brought from the frontlines to one of lviv's orphanages. on that rug volunteers spend hours building blocks with kids coloring, cuddling. and despite the affection and nourishing meals there are nightly reminders of the war. >> so every night when we hear the sirens do they get terrified? she tells me "it was horrible the first day the kids arrived. every child was shouting and screaming." she says many of the kids are traumatiz traumatized. tears come quickly here. anna borchik volunteers here every day. before the war she majored in political science. now she specializes in kid

diplomacy. >> oh! and is this something you're seeing? it seems like there's a lot of aggression? >> a lot of aggression. yes. anger. but i'm not trying to think about it. it's very hard children. but okay i can be with them a little bit. they have so bad memories. and that's okay. but i can make them -- i can make good memories for them. and that's what i try to do. >> reporter: you're trying to give them good memories. >> yes. >> reporter: a few good memories to balance out the bad. and they're surrounded here by love. even in a country gripped by war. >> our thanks to matt. up next, a mystery more than 100 years in the making. finally solved. when you really need to sleep. you reach for the really good stuff. zzzquil ultra helps you sleep better and longer when you need it most. its non-habit forming and powered by the makers of nyquil.

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and finally tonight, one of history's greatest shipwrecks has been found. scientists discovering polar explorer ernest shackleton's "endurance" off the coast of

antarctica. about 10,000 feet below the surface. the ship remarkably intact after sinking in 1915. its name still clearly visible on its stern. national geographic, part of our parent company, disney, giving abc news this exclusive first look at one of the masts. scientists say the frigid water helped to preserve the ship. it will now be left where it lies. the hope that the discovery of "endurance" will help to inspire future generations of explorers and adventurers. and that's "nightline" for this evening. catch our full episodes on hulu. we'll see you right back here same time tomorrow. thanks for the company, america. good night.