you misunderstood what they meant.

all countries are states. a state is an entity, some states band together into a federation of some sort. some are unitary, some are not. unitary means the same laws apply in all places, others have regional autonomy.

canada is a state, with subdivisions that it calls provinces america is a state, with subidivisions that it calls states russia is a mafia pretending to be a state, that has oblasts and others