You are spreading a common misconception. The borrow checker takes care of exactly nothing when it comes to cleaning up resources. The borrow checker is "just"

You are spreading a common misconception. The borrow checker takes care of exactly nothing when it comes to cleaning up resources. The borrow checker is "just" type checking, like a built-in static analysis. But it doesn't affect code generation at all! There is an alternative implementation of the Rust compiler (`mrustc`) which doesn't implement the borrow checker at all! But if your code passes the `rustc` borrow checker, then `mrustc` should compile it correctly (* if you don't use too many new features, afaik it is a bit behind the official compiler). I think the borrow checker has an unfair reputation of being complicated and magical. Its rules aren't always obvious to a beginner, but at the end of the day it's just type checking / static analysis. People often imagine it also does things at runtime, or affects code semantics in some way. It does not. And it's only scary because because it's so stern :)