diff --git a/include/linux/memcontrol.h b/include/linux/memcontrol.h
index fb5b2a41bd45..059f55841cc8 100644
--- a/include/linux/memcontrol.h
+++ b/include/linux/memcontrol.h
@@ -356,12 +356,49 @@ static inline bool mem_cgroup_disabled(void)
 	return !cgroup_subsys_enabled(memory_cgrp_subsys);
 }
 
-static inline unsigned long mem_cgroup_protection(struct mem_cgroup *memcg,
+static inline unsigned long mem_cgroup_protection(struct mem_cgroup *root,
+						  struct mem_cgroup *memcg,
 						  bool in_low_reclaim)
 {
 	if (mem_cgroup_disabled())
 		return 0;
 
+	/*
+	 * There is no reclaim protection applied to a targeted reclaim.
+	 * We are special casing this specific case here because
+	 * mem_cgroup_protected calculation is not robust enough to keep
+	 * the protection invariant for calculated effective values for
+	 * parallel reclaimers with different reclaim target. This is
+	 * especially a problem for tail memcgs (as they have pages on LRU)
+	 * which would want to have effective values 0 for targeted reclaim
+	 * but a different value for external reclaim.
+	 *
+	 * Example
+	 * Let's have global and A's reclaim in parallel:
+	 *  |
+	 *  A (low=2G, usage = 3G, max = 3G, children_low_usage = 1.5G)
+	 *  |\
+	 *  | C (low = 1G, usage = 2.5G)
+	 *  B (low = 1G, usage = 0.5G)
+	 *
+	 * For the global reclaim
+	 * A.elow = A.low
+	 * B.elow = min(B.usage, B.low) because children_low_usage <= A.elow
+	 * C.elow = min(C.usage, C.low)
+	 *
+	 * With the effective values resetting we have A reclaim
+	 * A.elow = 0
+	 * B.elow = B.low
+	 * C.elow = C.low
+	 *
+	 * If the global reclaim races with A's reclaim then
+	 * B.elow = C.elow = 0 because children_low_usage > A.elow)
+	 * is possible and reclaiming B would be violating the protection.
+	 *
+	 */
+	if (root == memcg)
+		return 0;
+
 	if (in_low_reclaim)
 		return READ_ONCE(memcg->memory.emin);
 
@@ -847,7 +884,8 @@ static inline void memcg_memory_event_mm(struct mm_struct *mm,
 {
 }
 
-static inline unsigned long mem_cgroup_protection(struct mem_cgroup *memcg,
+static inline unsigned long mem_cgroup_protection(struct mem_cgroup *root,
+						  struct mem_cgroup *memcg,
 						  bool in_low_reclaim)
 {
 	return 0;
diff --git a/mm/memcontrol.c b/mm/memcontrol.c
index 2701497edda5..6d7fe3589e4a 100644
--- a/mm/memcontrol.c
+++ b/mm/memcontrol.c
@@ -6446,6 +6446,14 @@ enum mem_cgroup_protection mem_cgroup_protected(struct mem_cgroup *root,
 
 	if (!root)
 		root = root_mem_cgroup;
+
+	/*
+	 * Effective values of the reclaim targets are ignored so they
+	 * can be stale. Have a look at mem_cgroup_protection for more
+	 * details.
+	 * TODO: calculation should be more robust so that we do not need
+	 * that special casing.
+	 */
 	if (memcg == root)
 		return MEMCG_PROT_NONE;
 
diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
index 10feb872d9a4..dc44da27673d 100644
--- a/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -2462,7 +2462,8 @@ out:
 		unsigned long protection;
 
 		lruvec_size = lruvec_lru_size(lruvec, lru, sc->reclaim_idx);
-		protection = mem_cgroup_protection(memcg,
+		protection = mem_cgroup_protection(sc->target_mem_cgroup,
+						   memcg,
 						   sc->memcg_low_reclaim);
 
 		if (protection) {