diff --git a/docs/CHANGELOG.md b/docs/CHANGELOG.md
index 6f7487c911..3734f9d668 100644
--- a/docs/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/docs/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@
   some apps improperly put multiple whitespace chars. This workaround allows accepting data from such apps.
 
 * BUGFIX: prevent from duplicate `name` tag returned from `/tags/autoComplete/tags` handler. See https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/942
+* BUGFIX: do not enable strict parsing for `-promscrape.config` if `-promscrape.config.dryRun` comand-line flag is set. Strict parsing can be enabled with `-promscrape.config.strictParse` command-line flag. See https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/944
 
 
 # [v1.49.0](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/releases/tag/v1.49.0)
diff --git a/lib/promscrape/config.go b/lib/promscrape/config.go
index 007ec267c1..1a3b2ed20c 100644
--- a/lib/promscrape/config.go
+++ b/lib/promscrape/config.go
@@ -27,11 +27,12 @@ import (
 )
 
 var (
-	strictParse = flag.Bool("promscrape.config.strictParse", false, "Whether to allow only supported fields in '-promscrape.config'. "+
-		"This option may be used for errors detection in '-promscrape.config' file")
+	strictParse = flag.Bool("promscrape.config.strictParse", false, "Whether to allow only supported fields in -promscrape.config . "+
+		"By default unsupported fields are silently skipped")
 	dryRun = flag.Bool("promscrape.config.dryRun", false, "Checks -promscrape.config file for errors and unsupported fields and then exits. "+
 		"Returns non-zero exit code on parsing errors and emits these errors to stderr. "+
-		"Pass -loggerLevel=ERROR if you don't need to see info messages in the output")
+		"See also -promscrape.config.strictParse command-line flag. "+
+		"Pass -loggerLevel=ERROR if you don't need to see info messages in the output.")
 	dropOriginalLabels = flag.Bool("promscrape.dropOriginalLabels", false, "Whether to drop original labels for scrape targets at /targets and /api/v1/targets pages. "+
 		"This may be needed for reducing memory usage when original labels for big number of scrape targets occupy big amounts of memory. "+
 		"Note that this reduces debuggability for improper per-target relabeling configs")
@@ -164,7 +165,7 @@ func (cfg *Config) parse(data []byte, path string) error {
 func unmarshalMaybeStrict(data []byte, dst interface{}) error {
 	data = envtemplate.Replace(data)
 	var err error
-	if *strictParse || *dryRun {
+	if *strictParse {
 		err = yaml.UnmarshalStrict(data, dst)
 	} else {
 		err = yaml.Unmarshal(data, dst)