diff --git a/pkg/proxy/nftables/proxier.go b/pkg/proxy/nftables/proxier.go
index 0ba4a437363..12c5e2fbd96 100644
--- a/pkg/proxy/nftables/proxier.go
+++ b/pkg/proxy/nftables/proxier.go
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ import (
 	"encoding/base32"
 	"fmt"
 	"net"
+	"os"
 	"reflect"
 	"strconv"
 	"strings"
@@ -40,6 +41,7 @@ import (
 	discovery "k8s.io/api/discovery/v1"
 	"k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/types"
 	"k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/sets"
+	"k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/version"
 	"k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/wait"
 	"k8s.io/client-go/tools/events"
 	"k8s.io/klog/v2"
@@ -50,6 +52,7 @@ import (
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/proxy/metrics"
 	proxyutil "k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/proxy/util"
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/util/async"
+	utilkernel "k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/util/kernel"
 	utilexec "k8s.io/utils/exec"
 	netutils "k8s.io/utils/net"
 	"k8s.io/utils/ptr"
@@ -215,6 +218,11 @@ func NewProxier(ctx context.Context,
 ) (*Proxier, error) {
 	logger := klog.LoggerWithValues(klog.FromContext(ctx), "ipFamily", ipFamily)
 
+	nft, err := getNFTablesInterface(ipFamily)
+	if err != nil {
+		return nil, err
+	}
+
 	if initOnly {
 		logger.Info("System initialized and --init-only specified")
 		return nil, nil
@@ -229,17 +237,6 @@ func NewProxier(ctx context.Context,
 
 	serviceHealthServer := healthcheck.NewServiceHealthServer(hostname, recorder, nodePortAddresses, healthzServer)
 
-	var nftablesFamily knftables.Family
-	if ipFamily == v1.IPv4Protocol {
-		nftablesFamily = knftables.IPv4Family
-	} else {
-		nftablesFamily = knftables.IPv6Family
-	}
-	nft, err := knftables.New(nftablesFamily, kubeProxyTable)
-	if err != nil {
-		return nil, err
-	}
-
 	proxier := &Proxier{
 		ipFamily:            ipFamily,
 		svcPortMap:          make(proxy.ServicePortMap),
@@ -270,6 +267,52 @@ func NewProxier(ctx context.Context,
 	return proxier, nil
 }
 
+// Create a knftables.Interface and check if we can use the nftables proxy mode on this host.
+func getNFTablesInterface(ipFamily v1.IPFamily) (knftables.Interface, error) {
+	var nftablesFamily knftables.Family
+	if ipFamily == v1.IPv4Protocol {
+		nftablesFamily = knftables.IPv4Family
+	} else {
+		nftablesFamily = knftables.IPv6Family
+	}
+
+	// We require (or rather, knftables.New does) that the nft binary be version 1.0.1
+	// or later, because versions before that would always attempt to parse the entire
+	// nft ruleset at startup, even if you were only operating on a single table.
+	// That's bad, because in some cases, new versions of nft have added new rule
+	// types in ways that triggered bugs in older versions of nft, causing them to
+	// crash. Thus, if kube-proxy used nft < 1.0.1, it could potentially get locked
+	// out of its rules because of something some other component had done in a
+	// completely different table.
+	nft, err := knftables.New(nftablesFamily, kubeProxyTable)
+	if err != nil {
+		return nil, err
+	}
+
+	// Likewise, we want to ensure that the host filesystem has nft >= 1.0.1, so that
+	// it's not possible that *our* rules break *the system's* nft. (In particular, we
+	// know that if kube-proxy uses nft >= 1.0.3 and the system has nft <= 0.9.8, that
+	// the system nft will become completely unusable.) Unfortunately, we can't easily
+	// figure out the version of nft installed on the host filesystem, so instead, we
+	// check the kernel version, under the assumption that the distro will have an nft
+	// binary that supports the same features as its kernel does, and so kernel 5.13
+	// or later implies nft 1.0.1 or later. https://issues.k8s.io/122743
+	//
+	// However, we allow the user to bypass this check by setting
+	// `KUBE_PROXY_NFTABLES_SKIP_KERNEL_VERSION_CHECK` to anything non-empty.
+	if os.Getenv("KUBE_PROXY_NFTABLES_SKIP_KERNEL_VERSION_CHECK") != "" {
+		kernelVersion, err := utilkernel.GetVersion()
+		if err != nil {
+			return nil, fmt.Errorf("could not check kernel version: %w", err)
+		}
+		if kernelVersion.LessThan(version.MustParseGeneric(utilkernel.NFTablesKubeProxyKernelVersion)) {
+			return nil, fmt.Errorf("kube-proxy in nftables mode requires kernel %s or later", utilkernel.NFTablesKubeProxyKernelVersion)
+		}
+	}
+
+	return nft, nil
+}
+
 // internal struct for string service information
 type servicePortInfo struct {
 	*proxy.BaseServicePortInfo
diff --git a/pkg/util/kernel/constants.go b/pkg/util/kernel/constants.go
index 5354f84272e..6775027e7a0 100644
--- a/pkg/util/kernel/constants.go
+++ b/pkg/util/kernel/constants.go
@@ -49,3 +49,8 @@ const IPVSConnReuseModeFixedKernelVersion = "5.9"
 const UserNamespacesSupportKernelVersion = "6.3"
 
 const TmpfsNoswapSupportKernelVersion = "6.4"
+
+// NFTablesKubeProxyKernelVersion is the lowest kernel version kube-proxy supports using
+// nftables mode with by default. This is not directly related to any specific kernel
+// commit; see https://issues.k8s.io/122743#issuecomment-1893922424
+const NFTablesKubeProxyKernelVersion = "5.13"