### Other notable changes

* Support German cloud for azure disk mount feature ([#50673](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/50673), [@clement-buchart](https://github.com/clement-buchart))
* BugFix: Exited containers are not Garbage Collected by the kubelet while the pod is running ([#53167](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/53167), [@dashpole](https://github.com/dashpole))

* Add metrics exporter to the fluentd-gcp deployment ([#45096](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/45096), [@crassirostris](https://github.com/crassirostris))
* Fix the bug where StartedAt time is not reported for exited containers. ([#45977](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/45977), [@yujuhong](https://github.com/yujuhong))

- Add `container_state` label to `running_container_count` kubelet metrics, to get count of containers based on their state(running/exited/created/unknown) ([#81573](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/81573), [@irajdeep](https://github.com/irajdeep))

* `kubeadm join` is now blocking on the kubelet performing the TLS Bootstrap properly. Earlier, `kubeadm join` only did the discovery part and exited successfully without checking that the kubelet actually started properly and performed the TLS bootstrap correctly. Now, as kubeadm runs some post-join steps (for example, annotating the Node API object with the CRISocket), `kubeadm join` is now waiting...

* Fixes discovery information for scale subresources in the apps API group ([#54683](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/54683), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt))
* BugFix: Exited containers are not Garbage Collected by the kubelet while the pod is running ([#53167](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/53167), [@dashpole](https://github.com/dashpole))

* Change ImageGCManage to consume ImageFS stats from StatsProvider ([#53094](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/53094), [@yguo0905](https://github.com/yguo0905))
* BugFix: Exited containers are not Garbage Collected by the kubelet while the pod is running ([#53167](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/53167), [@dashpole](https://github.com/dashpole))

- kubeadm: now pulls images when joining a new control plane instance ([#72870](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/72870), [@MalloZup](https://github.com/MalloZup))
- Exited kube-proxy when configuration file changes ([#59176](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/59176), [@dixudx](https://github.com/dixudx))

- `kubeadm`: now respects user provided `kubeconfig` during discovery process ([#113998](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/113998), [@SataQiu](https://github.com/SataQiu))
- `kubectl port-forward` now exits with exit code 1 when remote connection is
  lost ([#114460](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/114460), [@brianpursley](https://github.com/brianpursley))

- Fix kubectl printer to correctly handle timestamps of events emitted using events.k8s.io API ([#94226](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/94226), [@ingvagabund](https://github.com/ingvagabund)) [SIG CLI]
  ```sh
  $ kubectl get event

- Updated the HPA controller so that it no longer emitted a `FailedRescale` event if a scale operation initially failed due to a conflict but succeeded after a retry; it now emitted a `SuccessfulRescale` event in this case. A `FailedRescale` event was still emitted if all retries were exhausted. ([#132007](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/132007), [@AumPatel1](https://github.com/AumPatel1)) [SIG...