diff --git a/requirements-core.txt b/requirements-core.txt
index 326d072f99..4567d776ce 100644
--- a/requirements-core.txt
+++ b/requirements-core.txt
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ attrs>=21.3.0
 defusedxml>=0.7.0
 h5py>=2.10.0
 imagesize>=1.4.1
-lxml==5.2.0
+lxml<6,>=5.2.0
 matplotlib>=3.3.1
 networkx>=2.6
 nibabel>=3.2.1
diff --git a/src/datumaro/version.py b/src/datumaro/version.py
index 9ab5ad7bff..8fbe64c473 100644
--- a/src/datumaro/version.py
+++ b/src/datumaro/version.py
@@ -1 +1 @@
-__version__ = "1.6.1rc2"
+__version__ = "1.6.1rc3"