Rust itself depends on clang to build the llvm backend it runs on top of, so you can't get away from c++ that easily.
There's no fundamental reason that the Rust compiler has to be dependent on LLVM. It's just a good strategic decision as it allows the Rust developers to focus on the parts of the compiler that are unique to Rust, and use a well tested backend with lots of existing optimizations and targets for the parts that aren't particularly unique to Rust. There is actually some discussion already of using a faster, pure-Rust backend for debug builds, and maybe far in the future for release builds as well (https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/possible-alternative-compi...).