I think it is a bit myth that Rust does not sacrifice performance. If you stick to the safe part Rust usually does not seem to achieve the performance of C/C++ according to what I have seen and read. I agree that the cleaner separation of unsafe and safe parts is an advantage of Rust.

The clean separation between Unsafe and Safe rust is precisely, IMO, one of its biggest advantages (and the reason why it'll be superior to almost anything C++ comes up with).