The appointment came by presidential decree, announced through the press service; press secretary Sherzod Asadov confirmed it to Gazeta.uz. Usmanov had led the service since December 2020, and before that served as its deputy chief. The service guards the head of state and presidential sites, the most personal security mandate in the system.
Juraev, born in 1968, is the interior line personified: police chief of Namangan and then Khorezm regions, emergencies minister in 2017 and 2018, deputy interior minister running Tashkent’s police, commander of the National Guard from 2020, and, since January, first deputy interior minister in charge of public security. The chairmanship is his second appointment this year, and his third seat in seven months.
From the Guard to the ministry to the president’s door in seven months.
The service last drew wide attention in November 2024, when the president’s son-in-law Otabek Umarov left its deputy chairmanship. A Saturday change at its top, ending a five-and-a-half-year tenure without stated cause, is a Power Map fact before it is a story.
Two things would make it a story: where Usmanov surfaces next, and whether the National Guard and interior ministry cohort Juraev comes from keeps accumulating the posts closest to the president.