Rust is a significantly higher level language than C, but it can be used it almost all environments where C is used; provided there's a supported compiler target for it. In (safe) Rust, null is basically a guaranteed compiler optimization. Optional / nullable values are represented via Option<T>, which is a sum type of Some(T) and None. When a reference or other pointer-like value (e.g. Box<T>, an owned heap allocation) is wrapped in Option, the compiler can use the invalid bit patterns of T (such as null) to represent the None variant. This is called niche optimization.
So yes, it's nulls underneath, but the developer never has to think about them.
So yes, it's nulls underneath, but the developer never has to think about them.