- kubeadm: now explicitly waits for `etcd` to have grown when joining a new control plane ([#72984](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/72984), [@ereslibre](https://github.com/ereslibre))
- kubeadm: now pulls images when joining a new control plane instance ([#72870](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/72870), [@MalloZup](https://github.com/MalloZup))

- Kubeadm: ignore EINVAL when unmounting /var/lib/kubelet peer mounts during reset ([#137569](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/137569), [@fuweid](https://github.com/fuweid)) [SIG Cluster Lifecycle]

### Other (Cleanup or Flake)

- Fixed panic when accessing CustomResources of a CRD with `x-kubernetes-int-or-string`. ([#83787](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/83787), [@sttts](https://github.com/sttts))

* Include the list of security groups when failing with the errors that more then one is tagged ([#58874](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/58874), [@sorenmat](https://github.com/sorenmat))
* Allow "required" to be used at the CRD OpenAPI validation schema when the /status subresource is enabled. ([#63533](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/63533), [@sttts](https://github.com/sttts))

- Fixed an issue in the kubelet that showed when writeable layers and read-only layers were at different paths within the same mount.
  Kubernetes was previously detecting that the image filesystem was split, even when that was not really the case ([#128344](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/128344), [@kannon92](https://github.com/kannon92)) [SIG Node]

### Bug or Regression

- Fix Topology Aware Hints not working when the `topology.kubernetes.io/zone` label is added after Node creation
  - Fix a data race in TopologyCache when `AddHints` and `SetNodes` are called concurrently ([#117269](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/117269), [@tnqn](https://github.com/tnqn)) [SIG Apps and Network]

- Avoid creating new controller revisions for statefulsets when cache is stale ([#67039](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/67039), [@mortent](https://github.com/mortent))

* Retry 'connection refused' errors when setting up clusters on GCE. ([#57394](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/57394), [@mborsz](https://github.com/mborsz))
* Retry 'connection refused' errors when setting up clusters on GCE. ([#57394](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/57394), [@mborsz](https://github.com/mborsz))

* Fix panic in ControllerManager on GCE when it has a problem with creating external loadbalancer healthcheck ([#52646](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/52646), [@gmarek](https://github.com/gmarek))

- kubeadm: Promoted the feature gate `ControlPlaneKubeletLocalMode` to Beta. By default, kubeadm will use the local kube-apiserver endpoint for the kubelet when creating a cluster with `kubeadm init` or when joining control plane nodes...