You can do that in Rust by creating your own abstraction around `UnsafeCell`. Say `InitializeCell`: use std::cell::UnsafeCell; use std::mem::MaybeUnini

You can do that in Rust by creating your own abstraction around `UnsafeCell`. Say `InitializeCell`: use std::cell::UnsafeCell; use std::mem::MaybeUninit; use std::ops; pub struct InitializeCell<T> { inner: UnsafeCell<MaybeUninit<T>>, } unsafe impl<T> Sync for InitializeCell<T> {} impl<T> InitializeCell<T> { pub const unsafe fn new_uninitialized() -> InitializeCell<T> { InitializeCell { inner: UnsafeCell::new(MaybeUninit::uninit()), } } pub const fn new(init: T) -> InitializeCell<T> { InitializeCell { inner: UnsafeCell::new(MaybeUninit::new(init)), } } pub unsafe fn init(&self, init: T) { (*self.inner.get()) = MaybeUninit::new(init); } } impl<T> ops::Deref for InitializeCell<T> { type Target = T; fn deref(&self) -> &T { unsafe { &*(*self.inner.get()).as_ptr() } } } static VALUE: InitializeCell<i32> = unsafe { InitializeCell::new_uninitialized() }; static OTHER_VALUE: InitializeCell<i32> = InitializeCell::new(6); fn main() { unsafe { VALUE.init(5); } println!("{}", *VALUE); println!("{}", *OTHER_VALUE); }