Pro-Russian rebels search through rubble of Debaltseve

By Anton Zverev DEBALTSEVE, Ukraine (Reuters) - Searching through the rubble strewn throughout the eastern Ukrainian town of Debaltseve, a separatist picked out the ammunition left by fleeing government troops before pro-Russian rebels captured the town this week. "These are ours now, and we'll use them against (the Ukrainians) themselves. We have to expand," said the rebel who refused to give his name, straightening up while a dozen others continued their search for arms and ammunition. As the last mortar bombs fall around Debaltseve, eyes in Kiev and the West are looking to see where other targets for the rebels may lie, despite a ceasefire signed in Minsk the week before Debaltseve's fall. "What ceasefire?" the rebel, visibly intoxicated, asked rhetorically. Around him, residents who stayed through the separatist victory try to piece their lives back together in the town that came to symbolize one of Ukraine's biggest military defeats at the hands of rebels. Several hundred people, their clothes sullied and many crying, lined up for food in the center of town among the destroyed buildings and roads pocked by artillery barrages launched by the rebels to capture the town. "We're waiting. They should bring dry meals in blue packaging since the pasta is already finishing," said Yulia, 28, a teacher, holding her 10-year-old niece by the hand. In the distance artillery was still audible. Ukrainian troops who had been holding Debaltseve left this week under a barrage of rebel gunfire and artillery that Kiev and the West said had been brought from Russia. Washington, which supports Kiev's pro-Western government, has said Ukraine's defeat at Debaltseve is "deeply troubling". The White House said the Minsk agreement, which the rebels said did not apply to the Debaltseve, was not "a shopping list". While the West was watching the battle at Debaltseve as a litmus test of the newly signed peace accords, residents in the small town that had a peacetime population of around 25,000 were praying to stay alive. "The last nights here I barely survived. My house was shaking and we were shaking. Everything was shaking. I was sitting in my house praying to God and nothing more," said pensioner Anna Ivanovna, giving only her patronymic name. For others the end of fighting at least meant the chance to emerge from the shelters they had found during the heaviest stages of battle. "Since Jan. 20 there's been no heating, no electricity," said Dmitry, a barman. "I've been in the basement for the last month." (Writing by Thomas Grove; Editing by Dominic Evans)