*   DaemonSet status includes a new field named `conditions`, making it consistent with other workloads controllers. ([#55272](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/55272),[ @janetkuo](https://github.com/janetkuo))

- Gracefully delete nodes when their parent scale set went missing ([#95289](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/95289), [@bpineau](https://github.com/bpineau)) [SIG Cloud Provider]

[Prevents deletion of Persistent Volume Claims that are used by a pod](https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/498) and [Persistent Volumes that are bound to a Persistent Volume Claim](https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/499), making it impossible to delete storage that is in use by a pod.

This release also includes [Topology Aware Volume Scheduling](https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/490) for local persistent volumes, the stable release of [Detailed...

* Running `kubectl create secret` no longer accepts passing multiple values to a single --from-literal flag using comma separation
  * Update command invocations to pass separate --from-literal flags for each value

### RBAC

- Filter published OpenAPI schema by making nullable, required fields non-required in order to avoid kubectl to wrongly reject null values. ([#85722](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/85722), [@sttts](https://github.com/sttts))

  - Base pricing of custom instances on their instance family type
  - Add pricing information for missing machine types
  - Add pricing information for different GPU types
  - Ignore the new `topology.gke.io/zone` label when comparing groups
  - Add missing stable labels to template nodes
  
  ### HuaweiCloud
  - Add auto scaling group support
  - Implement node group by AS

## Major Themes

### SIG API Machinery

  - Base pricing of custom instances on their instance family type
  - Add pricing information for missing machine types
  - Add pricing information for different GPU types
  - Ignore the new `topology.gke.io/zone` label when comparing groups
  - Add missing stable labels to template nodes
  
  ### HuaweiCloud
  - Add auto scaling group support
  - Implement node group by AS

- Fixed a missing status prefix in custom resource validation error messages. ([#123822](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/123822), [@JoelSpeed](https://github.com/JoelSpeed))
- Fixed a race condition in kube-controller-manager and the scheduler, caused by
  a bug in the transforming informer during the Resync operation, 

- kubelet: Fix - the volume manager didn't check the device mount state in the actual state of the world before marking the volume as detached. It may cause a pod to be stuck in the Terminating state due to the above issue when it was deleted. ([#128219](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/128219), [@carlory](https://github.com/carlory))