Originally Posted by
virginblue
Why would there be passport checks while you were in transit airside? You technically never entered Germany. Would you have tried to leave the terminal to landside, you would have been checked by the border police. As you were not trying to do that, it was up to UK border control to check you leaving the country of departure (which the UK does not do, contrary to many other countries) and the Ukraine to check you entering Ukraine.
But I would regularly transit thru AMS, not entering The Netherlands, and regularly pass thru a passport check and/or security check, even once I had to go to the police office on the side because the Luxembourg police had put out an APB on me to the Dutch and Belgians under an old BENELUX arrangement.