Russian President Vladimir Putin says that Moscow will deploy some of its tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus next month, a move that the Belarusian opposition described as an attempt to blackmail the West. Putin said during Friday's meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that work on building facilities for the nuclear weapons will be completed by July 7-8, and they will be moved to Belarus quickly after that. The move comes as Ukraine has stepped up attacks in several sectors of the front line in what some observers see as the start of its long-expected counteroffensive. Russia used Belarus’ territory to send troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, and has kept forces on Belarusian territory.
Those aren’t puppet states
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppet_state#Recent_and_current_examples
All of Europe works as puppet states to the US, it doesn’t matter what the official book says because if they would say it out loud then Europe would realise they are being dragged into collapse by the Empire. The same can be said of Israel, you will not hear US officials admitting it, but they maintain good relations because Israel is a key political figure to keep a level of destabilisation in West Asia, Europe fulfils the same role but to control Russia.
Or they just have reasonably aligned interests and you’ve completely misunderstood the concept of a puppet state.
The US has a strong economic influence, but those countries still have sovereignty and can have disagreements. Lukashenko has no option but to obey Putin or he’ll be dead.