pushcx has 30 days to resolve it, and I found out about this by someone notifying him on Mastodon, so it'll probably be fixed soon. I also pinged him on Bluesky where he's posted more recently, just in case.

edit: he's on it

edit: https://lobste.rs/s/plhit5/lobste_rs_domain_renewal_outage

(see here for the comments on mastodon: https://octodon.social/@pushcx/111573248477861030)

Yes, it can be registered but requires a Serbian person to do as all registrations require an "ID Number". If you're from Serbia and you have $100 on you (only $30 if you're registering locally as far as I can tell) then register the domain and let the owner have it back because otherwise it will get jacked by some SEO scumbag and turned into a content farm, guaranteed.

CRI Domains itself says it can't be registered, but every other registrar I checked will let you proceed to checkout.

Don’t most TLDs have a time period in which your site is down but you still have the exclusive right to renew it before anyone can grab it?

From https://www.rnids.rs/en/domain-name-status-codes#Expired

"If the domain has not been renewed prior to the expiry date, the domain’s status will change to Expired. The domain name can be renewed in the next thirty days. If the domain name is not renewed within that period, the domain will be purged from the registry database and will become free for registration."

Not sure about that in this specific case. I think it enters some grace period after it expires (30 days maybe?), but I can't confirm that.

Still, it's better to be safe than sorry and if someone can register it as a precaution that would be ideal.