diff --git a/app/vmagent/remotewrite/remotewrite.go b/app/vmagent/remotewrite/remotewrite.go
index 337772560..824ea9ad7 100644
--- a/app/vmagent/remotewrite/remotewrite.go
+++ b/app/vmagent/remotewrite/remotewrite.go
@@ -227,6 +227,7 @@ func (rwctx *remoteWriteCtx) MustStop() {
 	}
 	rwctx.idx = 0
 	rwctx.pss = nil
+	rwctx.fq.UnblockAllReaders()
 	rwctx.c.MustStop()
 	rwctx.c = nil
 	rwctx.fq.MustClose()
diff --git a/docs/CHANGELOG.md b/docs/CHANGELOG.md
index 17674a6e9..94403e514 100644
--- a/docs/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/docs/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@
 
 * FEATURE: vmagent: add `scrape_align_interval` config option, which can be used for aligning scrapes to the beginning of the configured interval. See [these docs](https://victoriametrics.github.io/vmagent.html#troubleshooting) for details.
 
+* BUGFIX: vmagent: properly perform graceful shutdown on `SIGINT` and `SIGTERM` signals. The graceful shutdown has been broken in `v1.54.0`. See https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/1065
 * BUGFIX: reduce the probability of `duplicate time series` errors when querying Kubernetes metrics.
 
 
diff --git a/lib/persistentqueue/fastqueue.go b/lib/persistentqueue/fastqueue.go
index 5a3dd33e2..5c25933f6 100644
--- a/lib/persistentqueue/fastqueue.go
+++ b/lib/persistentqueue/fastqueue.go
@@ -52,16 +52,24 @@ func MustOpenFastQueue(path, name string, maxInmemoryBlocks, maxPendingBytes int
 	return fq
 }
 
-// MustClose unblocks all the readers.
-//
-// It is expected no new writers during and after the call.
-func (fq *FastQueue) MustClose() {
+// UnblockAllReaders unblocks all the readers.
+func (fq *FastQueue) UnblockAllReaders() {
 	fq.mu.Lock()
 	defer fq.mu.Unlock()
 
 	// Unblock blocked readers
 	fq.mustStop = true
 	fq.cond.Broadcast()
+}
+
+// MustClose unblocks all the readers.
+//
+// It is expected no new writers during and after the call.
+func (fq *FastQueue) MustClose() {
+	fq.UnblockAllReaders()
+
+	fq.mu.Lock()
+	defer fq.mu.Unlock()
 
 	// flush blocks from fq.ch to fq.pq, so they can be persisted
 	fq.flushInmemoryBlocksToFileLocked()