It is basically an early 1970s Fiat 124 as the Soviet Union with Fiat's assistance set up a Lada production line to produce them in the late 1970s. No longer produced in Ukraine but I guess Russia still does? You see plenty of Ladas broken down at the roadside in Ukraine. You also wouldn't want to be in an accident in one as crash protection is virtually nonexistent and contribute a considerable percentage of the 20 road deaths everyday in Ukraine. Ukrainian produced replacement is a Daewoo Lanos production line that has lived on after the demise of Daewoo but has had a couple of cosmetic makeovers.
Wife's nephew has one of the early Ladas it has no rear seat belts or points to fit them and when we got a 30 mile lift on the last leg of a trip from Kyiv's Zhuliana airport after a coach ride to Uman at night the rest of the journey was on mainly unlit badly maintained pot holed pitch black roads and the headlights would intermittently die when going over a bump with him braking with the poor brakes in the pitch black while not being able to see! He would fiddle with the wiring connectors until they came back on and we would set off again until the same thing happened.
When I talk about pot holes the worst can be half the with of the road and over a foot deep. Not a journey you would want to do at night in the rain, where they are water filled, if you didn't know the road.
They were an outdated and poor car when the Soviets started producing them and with all the advances in car, engine, suspension and safety design since then they really show their age. The engine's performance is poor as they were detuned to run on poor Soviet low 85 octane petrol which you an still buy in Ukraine, with poor fuel consumption at about 30 mpg and poor reliability, but spares are cheap and plentiful. In the cities in Ukraine they are getting much rarer where they have replaced them with the much more modern Daewoos or expensive imported (due to eye watering import duties) western cars. You see plenty of Opels including the occasional Omega, Fords, VW, Peugeots and Renaults. In the towns and villages Ladas are still a common sight.