Italy was most definetely occupied both during and immediately after the Second World War. The reason as to why why the country was not subjected to an extended postwar occupation as Germany was is probably attributable to the lack of any immediate threat from the Soviet Union (as, on the other hand, was the case in Germany as the Soviet Union occupied the eastern part of the country). That's of course not to say a significant portion of the postwar establishment in both Italy and the Allied Powers was worried about Italy's relationship with Soviet Union, because they most definetely were. However, I'm not familiar enough with the German situation to draw an explicit comparison.

Another important factor contributing to Italy's relatively short postwar occupation is tied to the king's government's surrender in 1943. While a fascist rump-state continued to oppose allied forces in the north of the country, an occupying system was already partially instituted two years before the war's end. I actually wrote about the implications of this "early occupation" in this other answer.

I'm not very familiar with the other countries asked about, but suffice it to say that experiences to the East of what would become the Iron curtain were conditioned by more active political pressure and interference by the dominant occupying power (that is to say, the Soviet Union). The historian Mark Gilbert discusses much of the political rationale behind the postwar reconstruction process in his Cold War Europe: The Politics of a Contested Continent, which might be interesting for you to check out.

Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia (alongside what is today the republic of moldova) were annexed as part of the secret agreement between the USSR and Germany when they signed the non-aggression pact of 1939, and were seen as re-expanding into the regions that the Russian empire once held. Eastern Poland was annexed mostly on account of the significant Ukrainian and Belarusian population, and integrated into the respective SSRs. So these were only the territorial gains of the soviets before they even joined the war.

About France. France was an allied power, and after the invasion by the nazis, they maintained a government in exile and held territories, mainly in northwestern Africa. Vichy France was considered illegitimate and was absolutely a puppet of the nazis, with very minimal autonomous power. After D-day and gaining back significant amounts of French land, the legitimate government, which had been a continuous ally of the English, was reinstalled and was trusted to maintain allied interest without the need for occupation.

Italy. My assessment here was not correct, see the comment by u/AlviseFalier for better info.

Romania. As the soviets progressed west after the axis advance was halted, Romania essentially switched sides. Ion Antonescu (fascist leader of Romania) was arrested and removed from power, prince Michael conducted a coup and aligned the new government of Romania with the allies. After the war, soviet influence still resulted in the ascension of the communist party of Romania, however Romania was one of the only eastern bloc countries that didn't host soviet troops, as a result of switching sides in the war.

Hungary. It is a mistake to say that Hungary was not under soviet occupation. It was actively occupied by the red army, under the authority of marshal Kliment Voroshilov. Hungary, as an Eastern Bloc state, continued to host the soviet army until the system shift of 1989.

Poland was, as you said, put under occupation. However, being punished is an overstatement (arguably). The reason for being put under occupation is due to the fact that ever since its (German) occupation it had been governed by Germans in a semi-autonomous entity known as the general government. The early war annexation was, as I said, due to Ukrainian and Belarusian majority populations in Eastern (interwar) Poland. However, when Poland was liberated and put under soviet occupation, a significant chunk of northeastern Germany, such as a part of East Prussia (the rest of which was annexed into the USSR and became Kaliningrad oblast), Pomerania, and Silesia, was granted to the new polish republic, after the systematic deportation of the German population.

The reason that the soviets never annexed these sattelite states is more complex. Partially, it was due to the fact that buffer states were needed (states with their own independent militaries and populations that could become fronts of war without hurting the soviet mainland or population), but it has also been argued (although as far as I've read, only by notoriously unreliable Russian historian Edvard Radzinsky) that Stalin did intend for the eventual annexation of the eastern bloc, by having the 'independent' communist states vote to join the soviet union. This obviously never came to pass (if the plan was reality in the first place).

As for Russia apologizing for the occupation of Poland, no. They still consider themselves the liberators of Poland, who granted them significant territories and only annexed what they believe was the rightful land of the USSR on an ethnic basis.

To add on to @Galhaar, who is absolutely correct, the consensus we have in Poland today that the Soviets were evil tyrants is very much the result of the end of the Cold War. Pre-1939, Communism was a very strong underground movement, actively (but not that brutally) repressed by the Sanation goverment. Between 1942-1945, the Communists made significant political gains due to their active involvement in resisting the Nazis. Polish Communists gradually established a parliamentary underground state, the KRN, which Moscow only found out about after it was a fact. There was already a Communist Polish government-in-exile in Moscow, so for a few months there was a tense silence as to whether Moscow would accept the existence of an independent Polish Communist government. Very nervously, the leadership of the KRN managed to send a delegation to Moscow to meet with Stalin, who welcomed them and forced the government-in-exile to merge with the KRN.

This next part is going to be controversial (but Norman Davies is probably the best source out there on Polish history and very worth reading). There are strong indications that the KRN and later the government of the Polish People's Republic were popular. To be sure, there was a massive guerilla war waged between anti-Communist militia and the government+Soviet troops, but the bulk of the population embraced the progressive land distribution, food distribution, social welfare, urban reconstruction, and education policies implemented by the government. It is worth remembering that Poland was a largely peasant population at the time, often treated no better than serfs, and even today, Poland's agricultural landscape is dominated by individual farmers as the Communists intended, as opposed to large conglomerates. Things changed over time as the government was cruelly repressive, but there is nothing in 1946 which would indicate that Poland might not have been a successful Communist country.