LVIV, Ukraine — A pile of garbage in a courtyard in the Frankivsky district is growing ... and growing, and growing. Every few minutes, residents throw their trash onto the already massive mountain of refuse.

Welcome to Lviv in western Ukraine, where the phrase “politics is a dirty game” isn’t just a cliché but a description of day-to-day life.

Trash is piling up in the city’s courtyards and backstreets, and landfills are full to capacity, all because of a standoff between the mayor and the government in Kiev. Local officials say it would take 850 trucks to remove some 8,500 tons of rubbish from the city — and while some of that garbage has been removed in the past few days, it's moving at a very slow pace.

Who’s at fault is a matter of dispute — but no one involved comes out smelling of roses.

The mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi, says Kiev imposed a “trash blockade” in May 2016, preventing the city from transporting its garbage elsewhere, after his Samopomich (Self Reliance) party left the national ruling coalition.

Kiev officials, however, say that Sadovyi himself bears responsibility, since he ignored Lviv’s rubbish issues by allowing landfills to overflow and failing to build a long-promised garbage processing plant.

As the hot summer approaches, the bad blood between Kiev and Lviv has reached boiling point.

Sadovyi called on the government to declare an “ecological emergency” and do all it can to alleviate the problem. In a video posted on Facebook, he said Kiev was “systemically and brutally” trying to force Lviv to its knees, adding that this was a “cynical game that played with the health” of residents.

“I address the president, prime minister and their local representatives,” Sadovyi said. “The methods you are using, for some sort of revenge that only you understand, are shameful.”

Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman answered in kind, tearing into the mayor at a government meeting.

“You want me to apologize?” Groysman said, addressing Sadovyi directly to camera. “Okay, I’ll apologize to the people of Lviv for the fact that you haven’t done your job for the last 11 years.”

Sticky situation

Three years after the Maidan Revolution, Ukraine has gone from promoting pro-Western values to haggling over trash. Significant reforms have been introduced, and the country has changed greatly in that time — but the nasty, down-and-dirty nature of Ukrainian politics remains.

Last week, Groysman dispatched top officials to Lviv, including the popular health minister Ulana Suprun, and called on officials in Ukraine’s other cities to take in Lviv’s trash.

Still, the friction hasn’t gone away. In Lviv, Suprun said the city “wasn’t overwhelmed with trash,” though a problem did exist that posed a threat to public health.

There are other points of conflict: Earlier in the year, members of Samopomich lent their support to an ongoing independent blockade of the Moscow-supported breakaway territories in the country’s east. This was seen by many as a means to undercut the authority of the Kiev government and exert pressure on President Petro Poroshenko.

At the heart of the dispute, observers say, is a campaign to hamstring Sadovyi, who is believed to harbor presidential ambitions.

If this was the aim, then the strategy of cutting off Lviv’s ability to dispose of its waste has hit home: It's the number one topic of discussion throughout Ukraine, and Sadovyi’s popularity ratings have nosedived.

“Garbage is the cause, but not the reason — the reason is the political competition,” said Yevhen Hlibovytsky, an independent political analyst. “Poroshenko wants Sadovyi to be sufficiently bruised so that he can’t launch a presidential campaign.”

Hlibovytsky added that "there’s a problem with the business model for garbage collection throughout Ukraine.”

Waste experts say more than 90 percent of Ukraine’s trash is destroyed or buried, and a small amount recycled — the opposite of in Europe. That means, Hlibovytsky said, that if Sadovyi is guilty, then so are most of the mayors of Ukraine. “Any city is vulnerable,” he said.

Flies and rats

Lviv is a picturesque, Hapsburg-era town that gets much of its income from the tourist trade — and authorities have been at pains to keep the winding cobblestone streets of the center free from waste.

But in outlying areas, the scene changes.

Garbage removal takes place, but infrequently. A fire a year ago closed down Lviv’s main landfill site, and since then authorities have been forced to strike ad hoc, one-off agreements with other municipalities — transporting the rubbish as far as the war-torn east.

“This is the worst it’s been,” said Bohdan Lyashchuk, a taxi driver who was repairing his car next to a massive mound of debris. “It’s been more than a month since the last trash pickup.”

“At night we hear the rats — soon they’ll start to carry away the children,” he said in jest, as giant bluebottle flies buzzed around him.

The crisis seems to have motivated the authorities to introduce modern disposal procedures. A local organization called “Zero Waste” is working with businesses and officials to apply western methods of recycling. The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development says it is poised to sign a memorandum of understanding for the first phase of construction of a state-of-the-art waste development plant.

The political manure fight between Kiev and Lviv most likely isn’t going to end soon, however.

For Sadovyi — who once had the reputation as one of Ukraine’s leading reformers — the struggle could be a turning point. Until now, he hasn’t declared his candidacy for presidential elections, which are scheduled for 2019.

“But if [Kiev officials] want me to have these ambitions, they’re acting in the right way,” he told POLITICO.

And what about Ukraine’s reputation for dirty politics?

“I look at dirt philosophically,” he said. “When there’s a lot, it falls away, and when there’s a little, it’s good for your organism.”