- Add "reason" field to image_garbage_collected_total metric, so admins can differentiate images that were collected for reason "age" vs "space" ([#123345](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/123345), [@haircommander](https://github.com/haircommander)) [SIG Node]

- Graduated the `DisableNodeKubeProxyVersion` feature gate to beta. By default, the kubelet no longer attempts to set the `.status.kubeProxyVersion` field for its associated Node. ([#123845](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/123845), [@HirazawaUi](https://github.com/HirazawaUi)) [SIG API Machinery, Cloud Provider, Network, Node and Testing]
- Improved scheduling performance when many nodes, and prefilter returned 1-2 nodes (e.g. daemonset)

  2. Pass `runtimeHandler` field in `RemoveImage()` call to container runtime in `kubelet`'s image garbage collection. ([#121456](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/121456), [@kiashok](https://github.com/kiashok))
- Added support for split image filesystem in kubelet. ([#120616](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/120616), [@kannon92](https://github.com/kannon92))

- Updated `kube-proxy` with `nftables` to reject or drop traffic to services with no endpoints from filter chains at priority 0 (`NF_IP_PRI_FILTER`). ([#132456](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/132456), [@aroradaman](https://github.com/aroradaman))