How do you unlock an apple iphone when in lost mode and no physical sim card is available?

It seems once an iphone set to lost mode, turned off and on, the wifi profile does not connect the the device to dedicated wifi anymore.

Since we have only eSIM available i am not able to temporary connect iphone via physical sim to internet.

Therefore once the iphone is in lost mode i am not able to disable lost mode and have to proceed with a painful restore procedure.

Please advise what are the thoughts here!