Zorndorf is one of those battles that demonstrate how the perception of victory depends on who's writing the history. Both Russian and Prussian historians have claimed it as a victory for their nations. Yet, if you look at the outcome, it seems as if both sides fought to a bloody draw. Frederick and Czarina Elizabeth each used it to claim political victory, much as Lincoln chose to claim the equally drawn battle of Antietam as a political victory for the Union in the American Civil War, giving him politcal leverage with Congress to support the Emancipation Proclamation.
Zorndorf came about because Russia, Austria's ally, had invaded Prussia in the third summer of the war and Frederick had to abandon his operations in Moravia (in the modern Czech Republic) to hurry north to the defense of his homeland and capital, Berlin. Fortunately for him, the Russian invasion army was moving at a glacial pace and it gave the king time to assemble a large enough force to intercept it.
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