Launching Ubuntu in WSL 2 fails with Error code: Wsl/Service/CreateVm/Plugin/ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND

I use WSL 2 Ubuntu inside Windows 11. After a recent Windows Update, WSL 2 stopped launching. When I try to launch WSL 2 (e.g., via wsl.exe from PowerShell, or by clicking "Ubuntu" from the start menu), I observe the following error

A fatal error was returned by plugin ''Error code: Wsl/Service/CreateVm/Plugin/ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND

I have also tried:

• wsl.exe --debug-shell
• wsl.exe --export Ubuntu my-backup.tar

but both commands show the same error message.

I checked the Windows Features and have both Hypervisor Platform and Windows Subsystem for Linux enabled. I also believe I performed a sufficient number of system reboots.

Since WSL refuses to tell me which file it is trying to create/access, I have no clue how to diagnose this further. Any help helping me to troubleshoot are appreciated. So far, I couldn't find any help on this specific WSL issue, only related startup crashes.