GNU Elpa and Emacs 25.3

[Paul Pogonyshev]

I cannot access GNU ELPA archive with Emacs 25.3.  Here is a shell
command I created for testing:

    emacs-25.3 --batch --eval "(let ((debug-on-error t)
(package-user-dir \"/tmp/elpa\") \
                                     (package-archives '((\"gnu\" .
\"https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/\";)))) \
                                 (when (file-exists-p
package-user-dir) (delete-directory package-user-dir t)) \
                                 (package-initialize) \
                                 (package-refresh-contents))"

It fails with

    (file-error "https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/archive-contents"; "Bad Request")

for me.  Also fails if I replace "https" with "http" in the command,
though with a different error.

For comparison all of this works fine:

* The command with different Emacs version: 24.5, 26.3 and 28.0.50
  (trunk).

* The command after replacing "https" with "http" with different Emacs
  version: 24.5, 26.3 and 28.0.50 (trunk).

* Any Emacs version I have, _including_ 25.3, if I replace archive
  with "https://melpa.org/packages/"; (also with "http" instead of
  "https").

In other words, it only fails with Emacs 25.3 and GNU ELPA for me.

Can someone verify this?  Does someone know what's going on?

Paul